Empire of Gold

Empire of Gold

ANDY MCDERMOTT

Copyright © 2011 Andy McDermott

For my family and friends

Prologue

Afghanistan

The barren landscape was simultaneously alien yet oddly familiar to Eddie Chase. The young Englishman had grown up in the rugged hills of Yorkshire, the topography of the northern county in many ways similar to the gnarled ground below the helicopter. But even at night, one difference was obvious. The hills and moors around his home town were green, a living countryside; beneath him now, everything was a parched and dusty brown. A dead land.

More death would be coming to it tonight.

Chase looked away from the window to the seven other men in the Black Hawk’s dimly lit cabin. Like him, all were special forces soldiers, faces striped with dark camouflage paint. Unusually, though, the participants in this mission were not all from the same unit, or even the same country. Five were from the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, one of the United Kingdom’s most admired – and feared – elite units. The remaining three, however, were from other nations, the team hurriedly pulled together by the Coalition for the urgent operation.

Despite this, Chase doubted they would have trouble working together. He already knew two of them, even if his previous dealings with Bob ‘Bluey’ Jackson of the Australian SAS had only been brief. Jason Starkman of the United States Army Special Forces – the Green Berets – had, on the other hand, been a friend for years.

The third foreign soldier was the unknown quantity, to Chase at least. Although he had been vouched for by the team’s commander, Major Jim ‘Mac’ McCrimmon – and to Chase there were few higher recommendations – he still wanted to get a handle on the beaky-nosed Belgian’s personality before they hit the ground. So he had taken the seat beside him with the intention of teasing out information about the Special Forces Group’s Hugo Castille.

As it happened, no teasing was necessary. The genial Castille had volunteered so much that even a trained interrogator would have struggled to keep up. ‘So we found a little bar off Las Ramblas,’ he was saying now, ‘and I met the most beautiful Spanish girl. Have you ever been to Barcelona?’ Chase shook his head, wondering how the conversation – well, monologue – had moved from a military operation in Bosnia to chatting up women in Spain in the few seconds he had been looking out of the window. ‘Its architecture matches its women! But as for what we did that night,’ a broad smile, ‘I am a gentleman, so I shall not say.’

Chase grinned back. ‘So there actually is something that stops you talking?’

‘Of course! I—’ Castille stopped as he realised he was being ribbed, and sniffed before taking a polished red apple from a pocket and biting into it.

A Scottish voice came from across the cabin. ‘Eddie, you accusing somebody of talking too much is a definite case of the pot calling the kettle black.’ The comment prompted laughter from most of the other men.

‘Ah, sod off, Mac,’ Chase told his commanding officer cheerily. The tightly knit, high-pressure nature of special forces units allowed for a degree of informality uncommon in the regular military – to a point. ‘At least I talk about more interesting things than bloody cricket and snooker.’

The stiff-backed man beside Mac had conspicuously not joined in with the laughter. ‘Your definition of interesting isn’t the same as everyone else’s, sergeant.’ Like Chase, Captain Alexander Stikes was in his late twenties, but the similarity ended there. Chase was fairly squat with a square, broken-nosed face that could at best be described as ‘characterful’, while the six-foot-tall, fair-haired officer had the high brow and straight nose of a throwback to Prussian nobility. ‘I think we’d all prefer a bit of quiet.’

‘Quiet is the last thing we’ll get in this tub, Alexander,’ said Mac, a hint of chiding audible even over the roar of the Black Hawk’s engines.

Amused by Stikes’s telling-off, Chase turned back to Castille. ‘That’s the third bit of fruit you’ve had since we left the base. Last I had was a banana for breakfast, and one end was all smushed.’

Castille took another bite. ‘I always bring lots of fruit on a mission. Much nicer than rations, no? And I have my ways to stop them getting bruised. My father taught me how to take care of them.’

‘So he’s some sort of . . . fruit vet?’

The Belgian smiled. ‘No, a grocer. Nobody wants to buy mushy fruit. What about your father?’

The question caught Chase off guard. ‘My dad?’

‘Yes, what does he do?’

‘He works for a logistics company. Shipping,’ he clarified, seeing Castille’s uncertainty. ‘He transports stuff all over the world, gets things through customs. Oh, and he’s also an arsehole.’

‘Like father, like son, eh, Yorkie?’ said one of the other SAS men, Kevin Baine. Unlike Mac’s earlier remark, the estuary-accented comment was devoid of playfulness.

‘Fuck off,’ Chase replied in kind. Baine’s flat face twisted into a sneer.

‘An arse-hole,’ echoed Castille, the word somehow comical in his Belgian French intonation. ‘You do not like him, then?’

‘Haven’t spoken to him since I left home ten years ago. Not that I saw much of him even before then. He was always off travelling. And having affairs behind my mum’s back.’ The admission took him somewhat by surprise, Castille’s affable questioning having drawn more out of him than he had intended. He gave his SAS comrades warning looks, daring anyone to make a joke. Stikes’s expression suggested that he had stored the fact away in his mental database, but nobody said anything.

‘Ah, I am sorry,’ said Castille.

Chase shrugged. ‘No problem.’ He had exaggerated – as far as he knew, there had only been the one affair.

But that was enough.

Castille was about to add something when the pilot’s voice crackled over a loudspeaker: ‘Ten minutes!’ The mood instantly changed, the eight men straightening sharply in their seats. The red interior lights went out entirely, the only remaining illumination the eerie green glow of the cockpit instruments. Combat lighting, letting the troops’ eyes adapt to night-time conditions.

‘Okay,’ said Mac, now entirely serious, ‘since we were a little short on prep, let’s review the situation one last time. Alexander?’

Stikes leaned forward to address the other men. ‘Right, now listen. As you know, we’ve got eleven United Nations aid workers – and one undercover MI6 officer – being held hostage by the Taliban, and twelve spare seats in our choppers.’ He glanced towards a window; flying a hundred metres from the US Army Black Hawk was a smaller MH-6 Little Bird gunship. ‘I want all of them occupied on the way back. And I want that seat,’ he pointed at one in particular, ‘to have our spy friend in it, alive and well. He’s got information on al-Qaeda that we need – maybe even Osama’s hidey-hole.’

‘Makes you wonder if we’d be going on a rescue mission if one of ’em wasn’t a spook,’ said Bluey.

‘I don’t wonder,’ Chase told the shaven-headed Australian with dark humour.

Stikes was unamused. ‘Keep it closed, Chase. Now, the GPS trackers on the UN trucks showed they’d been taken to an abandoned farm, and as of thirty minutes ago they’re still there. A satellite pass earlier today showed one other vehicle and a couple of horses, so we estimate no more than ten to twelve of Terry Taliban. We go in, reduce that number to zero, and recover the hostages.’

‘Just to clarify the rules of engagement here,’ said Starkman in his Texan drawl, ‘we’re not only rescuing the good guys, but taking out the bad guys, am I right?’

Even in the green half-light from the cockpit, Stikes’s cold smile was clearly visible. ‘Anyone who isn’t a hostage is classified as hostile. And you know what we do to hostiles.’ Grim chuckles from the team.

‘Any more word on air support, sir?’ asked the fifth SAS trooper, a chunky Welshman called Will Green.

‘Nothing confirmed as yet,’ said Stikes. ‘All our aircraft in the region are engaged on another operation – the ones that aren’t broken down, at least. If anything becomes available, it’ll almost certainly be American.’

‘Fucking great,’ muttered Baine. ‘Anyone got spare body armour? Nothing I like more than dodging friendly fire.’

‘That’s enough of that,’ said Mac sharply. ‘If it wasn’t for our American friends, we wouldn’t even have these helicopters. Be glad we’re not driving out there in Pink Panthers.’ The SAS Land Rovers, painted in pinkish shades for desert camouflage, had inevitably acquired the nickname.

‘Sorry, sir.’ Baine gave Starkman a half-hearted nod of apology.

‘Any further questions?’ Stikes asked. There were none.

‘One last thing,’ said Mac. He regarded his men, focusing particularly on Chase. ‘You’ve all been in combat before, but this might feel different from anything else some of you have experienced. No matter what happens, just stay calm, keep focused, and remember your training. I know you can get these people to safety, so stick together, and fight to the end.’

‘Fight to the end,’ Chase echoed, along with Green and Castille.

The next few minutes passed in as near to silence as it was possible to get inside the Black Hawk’s industrial clamour. Then the pilot’s voice boomed again: ‘One minute!’ Chase glanced out of the window. His eyes had now fully adjusted to the darkness, revealing that the landscape was climbing towards ragged mountains to the north. There were still expanses of desert plain, but they were broken up by steep, knotted hills. Tough terrain.

And they had six miles of it to cross.

The Black Hawk’s engine note changed, the aircraft tilting back sharply to slow itself before landing. Chase tensed. Any moment—

A harsh thump. Green slid open the cabin door on one side, Bluey the other, and the team scrambled out. Chase already had a weapon ready – a Diemaco C8SFW carbine, a Canadian-built variant of the American M4 assault rifle – as he ran clear of the swirling dust and dived flat to the ground, the others doing the same around him.

The Black Hawk heaved itself upwards, hitting Chase with a gritty downblast as it wheeled back the way it had come. The Little Bird followed. With surprising speed, the chop of the two helicopters’ rotors faded.

The dust settled. Chase stayed down, scanning the landscape for any hint that they were not alone.

Nothing. They were in the clear.

A quiet whistle. He looked round, and saw Mac’s shadowy figure standing up. The other men rose in response. Still wary, they assembled before the bearded Scot as he switched on a red-lensed torch to check first a map, then his compass. ‘That way,’ he said, pointing towards the mountains.

Chase regarded the black mass rising against the starscape with a grumbling sigh. ‘Buggeration and fuckery. Might have bloody known we’d be going the steepest possible route.’

‘Enough complaining,’ snapped Stikes. ‘Chase, you and Green take the lead. All right, let’s move!’

For most people, traversing six miles of hilly, rock-strewn terrain – in the dark – would be a slow, arduous and even painful task. For the multinational special forces team, however, it was little more than an inconvenient slog. They had night vision goggles, but nobody used them – the stars and the sliver of crescent moon, shining brilliantly in a pollution-free sky, gave the eight men more than enough light. After covering five miles in just over an hour and forty minutes, the only ill effect felt by Chase was a sore toe, and even Mac, oldest of the group by over fifteen years, was still in strong enough shape to be suffering only a slight shortness of breath.

Not that Chase was going to cut him any slack, dropping back from Green to speak to him as they ascended a dusty hillside. ‘You okay, Mac?’ he asked jovially. ‘Sounds like you’re wheezing a bit. Need some oxygen?’

‘Cheeky sod,’ Mac replied. ‘You know, when I joined the Regiment the entrance exercises were much harder than they are now. A smoker like you would have dropped dead before finishing the first one.’

‘I only smoke off duty. And I didn’t know the SAS even existed in the nineteenth century!’

‘Keep your mouth shut, Chase,’ growled Stikes from behind them. ‘They’ll be able to hear you half a mile away, bellowing like that.’

Chase’s voice had been barely above a conversational level, but he lowered it still further to mutter, ‘See if you can hear this, you fucking bell-end.’

‘What was that, sergeant?’

‘Nothing, Alexander,’ Mac called back to Stikes, suppressing a laugh. ‘That’s enough of that, Eddie. Catch up with Will before he reaches the top of the hill. We’re getting close.’

‘On it, sir,’ said Chase, giving Mac a grin before increasing his pace up the slope. By the time he drew level with Green, his levity had been replaced by caution, senses now on full alert. Both men dropped and crawled the last few feet to peer over the summit.

Ahead was a rough plain about half a mile across, a great humped sandstone ridge rising steeply at the far side. A narrow pass split the ridge from the mountains, a large rock near its entrance poking from the ground like a spearhead. The obvious route to the isolated farm was by travelling up the pass.

So obvious that it had to be a trap.

Unless the Taliban were complete idiots, which whatever his other opinions about them Chase thought was unlikely, there would almost certainly be guards watching the ravine’s far end. It was a natural choke point, easy for a few men to cover, and almost impossible to pass through undetected. And if the team were detected, that would be the end for the hostages. One gunshot, even one shout, would warn that a rescue was being attempted.

Which meant the guards had to be removed. But first . . . they had to be found.

Chase shrugged off his pack and extracted his night vision goggles. He switched them on, waited for the display’s initial flare to fade, then donned them. The vista ahead became several times brighter, picked out in ghostly shades of green. He searched for any sign of movement. Nothing.

‘See anything, Eddie?’ Green asked quietly.

‘Nothing on the ground . . . just checking that ridge.’ Chase raised his head. The top of the rise would be a good place to station a lookout, giving a clear view of the plain, but it would also be a lot of effort to scale.

Too much effort, apparently. There was nobody there. He closed his eyes to ease the transition back to normal sight, then removed the goggles and waved to the waiting soldiers. By the time Mac joined him, his vision had mostly recovered. ‘Anything?’ his commanding officer asked.

‘Nope. Thought they might have put someone on the ridge, but it’s empty.’

Mac surveyed the scene, then took out the map. ‘We’ll go over the ridge, come at anybody watching the pass from the southeast. It’s a closed canyon; they won’t be expecting anyone from that direction.’

Starkman examined the closely packed contour lines. ‘Steep climb.’

Bluey regarded his bulky Minimi machine gun – and its 200-round ammo box – disconsolately. ‘Aw, that’s great. I’m hardly going to spring up there like a mountain goat with this lot.’

‘Starkman, Chase, Castille,’ said Stikes impatiently, ‘get to the top and see if you can snipe them, otherwise go down the other side and take them from the canyon. The rest of us will wait by that large rock for your signal.’ He gave Mac a brief glance, waiting for affirmation; the Scot nodded. ‘Okay, move it.’

After checking their radios, the trio made their way across the plain. Chase looked up at the moonlit ridge. ‘Should be able to get up there without ropes,’ he said, indicating a likely path. ‘We— What the bloody hell are you doing?’

Castille had peeled a banana, wolfing down half of it in a single bite. ‘For energy,’ he mumbled as he chewed. ‘We have a big climb.’

Chase shook his head. ‘Hugo, you’re weird.’

‘Literally bananas,’ Starkman added. He and Chase laughed, prompting a snort from Castille, who polished off the fruit before bagging and pocketing its skin.

‘So, we all ready?’ Chase asked. ‘Or have you got a bunch of grapes an’ all?’

‘You may laugh,’ said Castille, starting up the ridge, ‘but you British should eat more fruit. It is why you are all so pale!’

Grinning, Chase followed, Starkman taking up the rear. The climb proved a little more tricky than it looked, the three men having to help each other scale a couple of particularly steep sections, but before long it flattened out.

By now, the trio were again all business. They advanced along the top of the ridge. About two hundred metres from the pass, Castille let out a sharp hiss. All three immediately dropped into wary crouches, weapons ready. ‘What?’ Chase whispered.

The Belgian pointed. ‘I see smoke.’

Chase narrowed his eyes, picking out a faint line wafting into the night sky. Its source was near the far end of the pass.

No need for further discussion; they already knew what they had to do. They quietly headed across the ridge. Below was the closed canyon – and at its head a small patch of glowing orange amidst the darkness. A campfire.

Chase raised his C8 and peered through its scope. As expected, the Taliban had left guards to watch the pass, positioned amongst broken boulders for cover. Two men in dusty robes and turbans sat near the fire. One had an AK-47 propped against a rock beside him; another rifle lay on a flat rock not far away. Of more concern, though, was a different weapon – the long tube of an RPG-7, a Russian rocket launcher with its pointed warhead loaded.

He lowered his gun, judging the distance. Slightly under two hundred metres: well within range of his Diemaco, even with its power reduced by the bulky suppressor on the end of its barrel. An easy shot.

Starkman had come to the same conclusion. ‘Let’s do ’em,’ he said. ‘You take the left guy.’

Chase nodded and shifted into firing position. The Taliban member reappeared in his scope. He tilted the gun up slightly, the red dot at the centre of his gunsight just above the man’s head. The bullet’s arc would carry it down to hit his temple . . .

A part of his mind intruded on his concentration. You’ve never killed anyone before. Not that he knew of, at least; he had been in combat, fired on people shooting at him . . . but this was the first time he had ever prepared to kill an unsuspecting man.

He shook off his doubts. The Taliban were enemies in a war, and the man in his sights would kill his friends and comrades if he got the chance. It was up to him to make sure that didn’t happen.

‘On three,’ Starkman whispered. ‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

‘Okay. One, two—’

‘Hold fire, hold fire!’ Chase hissed. His target had just hopped to his feet. He tracked him. ‘Wait, wait – shit!’

The Taliban disappeared behind a boulder. Chase quickly panned past it in the hope of reacquiring him on the other side, but after a few seconds it became clear that he wasn’t coming out. ‘Arse! Lost him.’

Castille searched through his own gunsight. ‘I think he has sat down. The other one is still talking to him.’

‘We need to get both those fuckers at once,’ Starkman muttered. ‘If one gets off a shot . . . ’

‘We’ll have to get ’em from the ground,’ said Chase. He saw a large rock near the ridge’s edge. ‘Tie a rope round that – I’ll go first.’

A line was quickly secured to the rock. Chase glanced down. This side of the ridge was roughly sixty feet high, more cliff than slope. He slung his rifle and took hold of the rope. ‘Okay, if the guys by the fire start moving, pull on the rope twice.’ Castille gave him a thumbs-up, Starkman nodding before aiming his rifle back at his target.

Chase began his descent. Even with two hundred metres separating him and the Taliban, he still moved stealthily, a shadow against the ridge’s craggy face. Ten feet down, twenty. Sandstone crunched softly under his boots with each step. Thirty feet, halfway. The fire was now out of sight behind the rocks, though its glow still stood out clearly. Forty. He checked the cliff’s foot. He would have to clear a small overhang, but another few feet and he would be safely able to jump—

A crunch beneath one sole – then a louder clonk and hiss of falling grit as a loose stone dropped away, hitting the ground with a thud.

And a voice, a puzzled ‘Uh?’ below—

Chase froze. Another Taliban! The overhang was deeper than he had thought, enough to conceal a man. Pashto words came from below. Chase didn’t know the language, but from the tone guessed that the unseen man was asking, ‘Who’s there?’ A flashlight clicked on, a feeble yellow disc of light sweeping across the sand.

More Pashto, the tone annoyed, not concerned. That was something, at least; the Taliban wasn’t expecting anyone but his comrades to be nearby. But if he remained suspicious and decided to investigate further, all he had to do was look up . . .

The C8 was hanging from Chase’s back on its strap. Gripping the rope with his left hand, he tried to reach back with his right to take hold of the rifle . . . but as his weight shifted the weapon swung round, the suppressor almost scraping against the cliff. He held in an obscenity. Even if he got hold of the gun, he would still have to fumble it into firing position with just one hand, an awkward – and almost certainly noisy – task.

He had a handgun, a Sig P228 holstered across his upper chest, but it was unsilenced. The shot would be heard for miles.

That left his combat knife, sheathed on his belt. He slowly reached down and released the restraining strap, then drew out the six-inch blade.

The yellow circle danced over the ground as the man emerged from the overhang. He gazed towards the campfire, then looked round. Chase knew what he was thinking: none of his companions was nearby, so something else must have made the noise.

The dangling Englishman stepped sideways across the cliff, bringing himself closer to his target.

Target. A human being, enemy or not. You’ve never killed anyone before, not close enough to look into their eyes . . .

The Taliban turned in place. The beam found the dislodged stone, a jagged lump the size of a grapefruit. He peered at it, started to turn away – then some flash of curiosity made him look up—

Chase dived at him, slamming the man to the ground and driving the knife deep into his throat as he clamped his free hand over the Afghan’s mouth. Blood gushed from the wound, an arterial spray jetting over his cheek and neck. The Taliban kicked and thrashed, the fallen torch lighting one side of his face. His visible eye was wide, filled with agony and terror. It fixed on the soldier’s camouflage-blackened features, their gazes meeting . . . and then he fell still, staring emptily at the stars.

Chase regarded the corpse for a moment that felt like half a lifetime, then yanked out the knife and sat up. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, a bilious nausea rising inside him. He forced it back down, wiping the knife clean and returning it to its sheath, then switched off the torch. Darkness consumed his vision for several seconds before his eyes adjusted.

The body was still there, the neck wound glistening accusingly.

He looked away, unslinging his rifle and aiming it towards the distant fire. If the fight had been heard, the other Taliban would be on their way . . .

No movement. He had been lucky.

He returned to the rope and tugged it three times – all clear – before investigating the space beneath the overhang to see what the Afghan had been doing. The smell from the little nook provided the answer. He had interrupted the dead man during a call of nature.

A fall of sand announced Starkman’s descent, the American dropping down beside his friend. ‘What happened?’

‘He got caught short,’ Chase replied, the grim gag escaping his lips before he had time to process it consciously.

Starkman grinned, then moved back as Castille descended the rope. ‘Are you all right?’ the Belgian asked.

Chase didn’t want to think about it any more. ‘Fine.’ A wave of his gun towards the fire. ‘They’ll soon start thinking their mate’s been gone too long just to be constipated.’

Keeping low, they advanced, stopping behind a rock some sixty metres from the campfire. Chase’s erstwhile target sat with his back against a large boulder, gnawing the meat off an animal bone. The other Taliban had moved closer to the fire, within reach of the RPG.

Chase was about to take aim when Castille touched his arm, a hint of sympathetic concern in his voice. ‘I can do it, if you want.’

He brusquely shook his head. ‘That’s okay.’ A pause, then more lightly: ‘But thanks anyway.’

‘No problem.’ They shared a brief look, then Chase returned his attention to the scope.

The red dot fixed on the Taliban’s forehead. ‘Ready?’ he whispered to Starkman.

‘Yeah. One, two . . . three.’

This time, nothing disrupted the shots. Each rifle bucked once, the retorts reduced to flat thwaps by the suppressors. Chase blinked involuntarily, his eyes reopening to see a thick, dark red splash burst across the rock behind his target’s head.

‘Tango down,’ Starkman intoned.

‘Tango down,’ Chase echoed. The body of his victim slowly keeled over, leaving a smeared trail over the stone. ‘Okay, let’s bring the boys through.’ He reached for his radio.

The rest of the team arrived three minutes later, Mac leading the way. ‘Good work,’ he said as he took in the bodies. ‘Just these two?’

‘There was another one back there,’ Starkman reported. ‘Eddie took him out. Stabbed him in the neck.’

Mac looked at Chase, raising an eyebrow at the sight of his uncharacteristically expressionless face. ‘Your first kill, yes?’

‘Yeah,’ Chase replied, his voice flat.

‘Well, it’s good to know there’s more to you than just talk, Chase,’ said Stikes sarcastically as he checked one of the corpses. When no reply was immediately forthcoming, he went on: ‘What, no smart-arse comments? Not going wobbly on us, are you?’

Mac’s face creased with irritation. ‘Alexander, take Will and Bluey and check that the way’s clear.’ He gestured at the dusty slope to the north. Stikes gave him a puzzled look, prompting him to snap, ‘Well, go on!’ Annoyance clear even under his face paint, Stikes summoned the two men and started up the hillside. Starkman took the hint and nudged Castille to give Chase and Mac some space.

‘How do you feel?’ Mac asked.

‘I dunno,’ Chase replied truthfully. ‘Shaken, I suppose.’

‘A bit sick?’

An admission took a few seconds to emerge. ‘Yeah.’

‘Good.’ Mac put a reassuring hand on Chase’s shoulder. ‘If you hadn’t, I would have been concerned.’

‘How come?’ Chase asked, surprised. ‘I mean, after all the training I thought I could just do it without thinking. Without worrying, I mean.’

‘Training can only take you so far, Eddie. The first time you actually have to kill someone for real . . . well, it’s different. Some people find they can’t do it at all. Others do it . . . and enjoy it. I’m glad you’re in the third category.’ He squeezed his arm. ‘You did the right thing – you protected your teammates, the mission and the lives of the hostages. You did well, Eddie. I always knew you would.’

Chase managed a faint smile. ‘Thanks, Mac.’

‘So let’s get back to work.’ He waved, telling the rest of the team to move out. As the men set off, his radio clicked. ‘Yes?’

Even over the headset, Stikes sounded concerned. ‘Major, we have a slight problem.’

‘He wasn’t fucking kidding,’ Chase growled.

The team hid amongst desiccated scrub at the top of the slope. Before them was a relatively flat expanse backed by the rising mountains, a few tumbledown buildings about three hundred yards away: the abandoned farm where the Taliban had taken their prisoners.

In its description of the location, the mission briefing had been accurate. In its assessment of the enemy forces, however, it had not.

‘Where the fuck did this lot come from?’ said Baine. They had expected at most a dozen Taliban, but at least that could be seen beside the single-storey farmhouse alone, and the number of tents pitched nearby suggested many more. The three white-painted United Nations vehicles – two medium-sized trucks and a Toyota Land Cruiser – and the battered pickup spotted by satellite had been joined by another three well-worn off-roaders, and the ‘couple’ of horses had multiplied to at least ten. There were even some motorcycles.

‘Doesn’t really matter, does it?’ said Starkman. ‘Question is, what do we do about ’em?’

Mac looked through binoculars. ‘If this were a search-and-destroy mission, nothing would change – we’ve still got surprise and firepower on our side. But with hostages to worry about . . . ’ His gaze fixed on a barn-like structure a hundred yards from the house. ‘There are two men guarding the barn, but no lights inside. That’s probably where they’re being held.’

Movement at the main building; several Taliban, chattering loudly, went inside, while others headed for the tents. A few men remained outside. ‘That’s useful,’ said Stikes. ‘If they stay in the house, we can bring the whole thing down on top of them.’ He indicated the Heckler & Koch AG-C 40mm grenade launchers mounted on Green’s and Baine’s rifles. ‘Get a lot in one go.’

‘Still plenty left,’ Mac replied. He pointed at a shallow irrigation ditch not far away. ‘Eddie, Hugo, see if the hostages are in the barn. And check for any more tents behind the house.’

Chase and Castille slipped off their packs, then, weapons in hand, crawled across the dusty ground and slithered into the ditch. It took them almost ten minutes to reach the barn, moving at a silent snail’s pace to avoid alerting the guards. The dusty channel passed about forty feet from the dilapidated structure; once out of the guards’ field of view, Chase cautiously raised his head. Nearby was a rubbish pile that would provide additional concealment as they approached the barn. He ducked back down and signalled for Castille to follow, crawling onwards until they drew level with the garbage heap.

He peered up again – and froze as a guard came into view, AK hanging from one shoulder. The man trudged along the side of the barn, passing the pile of rubbish with barely a sideways glance.

Chase expected him to round the rear of the building, but instead he continued across open ground to a small shack. He unbolted its door and went inside.

A woman’s fearful shriek cut through the night air. Chase whipped up his gun. It couldn’t be any of the hostages – mindful of Afghanistan’s repressive attitudes, the UN workers were all men. The Taliban had another prisoner.

Prisoners, plural. A second woman wailed a plea, which was cut short by the thud of a foot hitting flesh and a pained squeal. The man shouted, his tone filled with disgust, and reappeared, slamming the door and bolting it before stalking away.

Chase waited until he was out of sight, then emerged from the ditch and took cover behind the trash heap. Castille followed. ‘What was that?’ the Belgian whispered.

‘I don’t think these fundamentalist fuckwits are running a women’s refuge,’ Chase snapped. ‘Come on, let’s get them out of there.’

‘Wait, wait, wait! We have to find the hostages first.’

Chase frowned, but knew Castille was right. ‘Okay. You watch for—’ He stopped, sniffing. The stench of garbage was unpleasant enough, but there was another, more ominous odour mixed in with it. ‘You smell that?’

Castille’s large nostrils twitched, and his face fell. ‘Yes. Do you think . . . ’

‘Yeah, I think.’ Chase peeled away a mouldering piece of sacking to reveal what he had feared – a corpse. White skin, not olive or brown. One of the hostages. ‘Shit!’

‘There is another here,’ Castille reported mournfully. ‘No, two more. Their throats have been cut.’

‘Saves on bullets,’ Chase said bitterly as he found a fourth body beneath the first. Even in the moonlight, he recognised the face from the mission briefing. ‘I’ve found our spook. Fuck!’ He sat back on his haunches, fuming. ‘Any more?’

‘No. So, they’ve killed four of them.’

‘Which still leaves eight.’ He looked at the barn . . . then an object beside it. A large, old-fashioned refrigerator lying on its side, the door missing. Churned-up dirt showed where it had been dragged from the trash and pushed against the wall. ‘Keep an eye out, I’ll check the barn.’

Castille covering him, Chase crept forward. As he suspected, the fridge had been moved to act as a barricade, blocking a gap. He peered between the planks.

Holes in the roof provided pools of moonlight inside, enough for him to make out the slight movement of somebody’s breathing. The man was bound, his face darkened with bruises and blood. Another man’s tied legs were visible nearby, other forms in the shadows.

The mission wasn’t over, then. He moved to the corner of the barn and glanced round it, seeing another half a dozen large tents behind the house, as well as more tethered horses. He returned to Castille, and they dropped back into the ditch. Another long crawl, and they reached the scrubby bushes where the others were waiting. ‘They’ve killed four of the hostages,’ Chase reported. ‘Including the guy from MI6.’

That prompted a round of muttered obscenities. ‘The mission’s down the lavatory then,’ said Stikes.

‘There are still the other hostages,’ Mac reminded him. ‘Did you see them?’

‘Yeah,’ said Chase. ‘They’re tied up in the barn. But there’re another six tents behind the house, and more horses. I think we’re talking at least forty Terries altogether.’

‘Hrmm,’ Mac rumbled, thinking. ‘Jason, get on the radio and see if any additional air support has become available. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try.’

‘You don’t think we’ll be able to take ’em?’ Baine asked.

‘Not all of them, and if we have to make a run for it with the hostages I’d like to have as much firepower covering us as possible.’

‘There’s something else,’ said Chase as Starkman made the call. ‘There’s a hut past the barn, and there are more prisoners in it. Women.’

‘So what are you proposing we do?’ said Stikes with a sneer. ‘They’re not our problem – our only concern is rescuing our hostages.’

Chase stared at him in disbelief. ‘Are you fucking serious? These Taliban arseholes hate women. Whatever they’re planning on doing with them, it won’t be giving ’em flowers and foot massages!’

‘Watch your language with me, sergeant,’ Stikes hissed. ‘Much as you might want to play the white knight, we can’t take them with us. There isn’t enough room in the helicopters.’

‘Four of the hostages are dead,’ Chase insisted, ‘so we’ve got spare seats – and if there’s more of them some of us can ride on the skids.’

Baine snorted. ‘I’m not hanging off the bottom of a fucking chopper so some silly bitch in a burka can get a free ride, Yorkie. Fuck that!’

Chase made an angry move towards him, but Mac raised his hand. ‘Eddie, I’m sorry, but Alexander’s right. The hostages are our priority. The women will . . . ’ He shook his head, downcast. ‘They’ll have to fend for themselves.’

‘Can I at least let them out of the hut?’

Mac considered for a moment. ‘If the situation allows.’

Chase nodded, then everyone looked round as Starkman finished his radio call. ‘Good news and bad news,’ the American announced.

Bluey chuckled. ‘There’s a surprise.’

‘Good news is, there’s a Spooky, call sign Hammer Four-One, in the air. Bad news is, it’s currently on another op and they don’t know when, or even if, it’ll be able to get to us.’

‘No helicopters?’ asked Mac. Starkman shook his head. ‘That settles it, then. We can’t wait for backup – it won’t be long before somebody realises those sentries are missing. We move in now.’

Ten minutes later, Chase was back at the barn. This time Stikes, not Castille, was with him. The captain lurked by the pile of garbage and corpses, while Chase squatted in the shadows against the rusting refrigerator.

Minutes ticked by. Chase’s calf muscles started aching, but he ignored the discomfort, staying focused on his task. This time there was no self-doubt, no uncertainty; the knowledge of what the Taliban had done to the four dead hostages, and what they were likely to do to their other prisoners, had eliminated any concerns about whether he was doing the right thing. He flexed his legs, trying to keep them from stiffening. He couldn’t afford to be even a second late in reacting . . .

‘Psst!’ Stikes, signalling that a guard was beginning another patrol round the barn. Completely still, Chase listened to the plodding crunch of the Taliban’s footsteps, the rustle of loose clothing as he drew level—

Chase leapt up, left hand locking firmly over the Afghan’s bearded mouth as his right whipped up the knife. This time, though, he didn’t drive the blade deep into muscle and sinew, but pressed it flat across the man’s throat to choke him. Simultaneously, Stikes rushed to them, yanked up the Taliban’s robes and jabbed his own knife up between the man’s legs as he hissed in Pashto: ‘Make a noise and I’ll cut off your balls.’

Chase felt the Afghan tense in utter terror. ‘I think he gets the point,’ he whispered.

Still holding the knife to the Taliban’s groin, Stikes straightened and waved at the ditch. Two figures emerged: Castille and Starkman. Stikes spoke again in Pashto, his intense blue eyes glinting in the moonlight as they fixed on the prisoner’s. ‘If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I’ll gut you like a pig. Nod if you understand me.’ The trembling man did so. Starkman and Castille pressed against the wall just short of the barn’s front corner. ‘Good. Now, call to the other guard – not too loudly – and ask him to come here. Okay?’

Another feeble tip of the head. Stikes nodded to Chase, who took his hand away from the man’s mouth, keeping the point of his knife pressed against his windpipe. The Afghan took several long, gasping breaths, then spoke in quavering Pashto. Stikes pushed his knife harder against the man’s testicles. ‘Again. Less frightened.’ The Taliban repeated himself with fractionally more confidence.

The other guard, out of sight round the front of the barn, replied dismissively. One look into Stikes’s eyes was enough to convince the prisoner to be more insistent. Complaining, the second man padded round the corner – to find five figures in the moonlight where he had expected only one. Fumbling for his AK, he opened his mouth to yell a warning—

Bullets from the silenced C8s of Green and Baine, the two SAS men still concealed in the scrub three hundred yards away, blew out the back of his skull in a spray of brain and bone. His body flopped grotesquely forward – to be caught by Castille, Starkman lunging to grab his Kalashnikov before it could clatter to the ground.

Stikes withdrew the knife from his captive. For a moment, there was a faint flicker of hope in the Taliban’s eyes, but it vanished when Stikes placed the blade’s point over his heart. The captain spoke again, this time in English. ‘Give my regards to the seventy-two virgins.’

The man stared in fearful incomprehension – and the blade sank to its hilt into his chest. With a hint of a smile, Stikes twisted it, then yanked it out. The man’s robes darkened as spewing blood soaked them. Chase clamped his hand back over the Afghan’s mouth as he struggled, trapping an animalistic sound inside his throat . . . until both noise and movement dwindled to nothing.

Suppressing shock, Chase let go. The corpse slumped to the dirt. Without even giving it a look, Stikes turned away as Mac and Bluey emerged from the ditch. ‘Bluey, watch the front of the barn; Alexander, cover the back,’ Mac ordered. He pointed at the fridge. ‘Everyone else, move that. Let’s get them out of there.’

With four men to lift it, the corroded fridge was hauled clear in moments. Chase looked into the barn. The confrontation had caught the hostages’ attention, and the bound man he had seen earlier was staring at him in alarm. ‘It’s okay,’ he said quietly. ‘We’re here to get you home.’ He squeezed through the gap, Mac, Starkman and Castille following. The prisoners’ bonds were quickly cut.

‘Mac!’ An urgent whisper from outside. Bluey. ‘Two blokes coming from the house.’

The guards’ absence had been noticed. ‘Hugo, take them to the ditch, then join Bluey,’ said Mac. ‘Eddie, you go with Alexander. Jason?’

‘Already on it,’ Starkman drawled, extracting a pair of Claymore mines from his pack and placing them facing the barn doors before connecting their tripwires.

The hostages were in a bad way, Chase realised as he followed the eight men out through the hole and watched them stagger after Castille. That would slow their escape – not good with forty pissed-off Taliban on their heels.

They would have to reduce that number.

He joined Stikes at the barn’s rear corner. A couple of bearded men carrying AKs were now standing by the horses, another ambling amongst the tents. Behind him, he heard Mac on the radio, alerting the helicopters that they were about to evacuate – most likely under fire.

The hostages were hiding in the ditch. Castille ran to join Bluey. Starkman emerged from the barn and readied his weapon. Chase’s heart pounded, adrenalin rushing into his system.

Someone at the front of the barn called out in Pashto, then with a creak of wood pulled open the doors—

Both Claymores detonated, a pound and a half of C-4 explosive in each mine blasting seven hundred steel balls outwards in a supersonic swathe of destruction. The doors were obliterated, the two Taliban outside disintegrating into a bloody shower of shredded meat and bone.

Before the boom of the twin detonations had faded, Chase and Stikes stepped out into the open and fired. The two Taliban by the horses fell to Chase’s bullets, the walking man tumbling before Stikes switched his aim to the closest tents. Screams came from them as the dirty fabric puckered with bullet holes.

More gunfire from the front of the barn, the suppressed thumps of Castille’s C8 almost lost beneath the chattering roar of Bluey’s machine gun as the pair opened fire on the Afghans outside the farmhouse. More screams, and shouts from within as the Taliban realised they were under attack and piled for the exit—

The house’s front wall blew apart, the roof crashing down on the men inside. It had been hit by high explosive grenade rounds fired by Baine and Green. A huge dust cloud burst from the ruins, roiling over the tents and the panicked horses.

A man with an AK leapt out from a tent – only to fall dead as Chase picked him off. Stikes was still shooting into the other tents to slay their occupants before they could even move. The Minimi’s hammering stopped, angry yells reaching the team as the surviving Taliban started to regroup – then they were drowned out again as Bluey resumed firing.

Chase glanced back, seeing Mac and Starkman herding the hostages along the irrigation ditch. Castille and Bluey retreated to provide covering fire. He knew he should join them, but there was something he had to do first.

The swelling dust cloud covered the tents behind the destroyed house. This was his chance. He broke away from Stikes, and hurried to the hut.

‘Chase!’ Stikes roared. ‘Get back here!’

Chase ignored him, yanking the bolt and throwing open the door. A cry of fear came from the darkness inside. He fumbled for his penlight torch, shining it quickly round the interior to see five dark, almost formless shapes: the women, even their eyes only part visible through the netted slits in their all-encompassing chadris. Their hands were tied behind their backs, their ankles also bound under the heavy robes.

‘Don’t be scared,’ said Chase. ‘I’m here to help. British, not Taliban.’ Despite the netting, he could see that the women’s eyes were swollen and blackened. ‘Bastards,’ he muttered as he drew his knife. One of the women made a terrified keening sound and tried to wriggle away. He put down his Diemaco. ‘Here to help, okay?’ She got the message and turned so he could reach her ties. From outside came another grenade explosion, followed by the thump of a fuel tank detonating: Green or Baine had destroyed one of the trucks.

‘Chase!’ Stikes appeared at the door, gun raised. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘What I said I would.’ He started to saw at the rope.

‘Leave them – that’s an order. We’re moving out. Now!’

‘We can take them with us.’

‘Leave them!’

‘No, there’re enough seats in the choppers. I’ll—’

Stikes fired. Even with its suppressor, the noise of his rifle on full auto was painful in the confined space. The stream of bullets sliced down the five women and spattered Chase with blood.

‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ Chase yelled, rolling out of the line of fire. He whipped up his C8 at the captain – to find the smoking barrel pointing straight back at him. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘I told you the rules of engagement,’ said Stikes coldly. ‘Anyone who isn’t one of the hostages is a hostile.’ A thin, malignant smile. ‘And as I said, you know what we do to hostiles. Now lower your weapon.’

‘You fucker,’ Chase snarled. The black tube of the suppressor was still aimed at his head. Slowly, unwillingly, he let his own rifle drop.

‘Good. Move it,’ said Stikes. The Diemaco not wavering, he backed out of the shack, then turned and ran for the barn.

Chase jumped up, rage flooding through him. He should shoot the bastard in the back—

No. He shouldn’t. There was a mission to complete. He went to the door, then hesitated, his gaze drawn back to the sprawled bodies. With an angry growl, he ran after Stikes.

Castille and Bluey were still firing as they advanced along the ditch after the fleeing hostages. Stikes ran past the pair, but Chase joined them. One of the UN trucks was aflame, and the other vehicles had all taken damage. There were at least fifteen Taliban survivors, judging from the muzzle flashes from behind the collapsed house. It was mostly panic fire, the shots smacking harmlessly into the ground short of the trench. Chase matched the timing of the closest impacts to the flash of the most accurate gunman, then dropped him with a single round to the head.

‘Good shot,’ said Castille. ‘What were you and Stikes doing back there?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Chase replied grimly. He looked along the ditch to see that Stikes had caught up with Mac, at the tail of the shambling line of hostages. Starkman, leading, was almost at the bushes. ‘Time to go.’

‘Can’t argue with that,’ said Bluey, releasing a sweeping burst before scuttling crab-like down the ditch. Chase and Castille trailed him. A hollow whomp came from the scrub, and a moment later one of the 4×4s was bowled on to its roof in a huge fireball as another AG-C round found its target. A man, robes and beard aflame, ran screaming into the night. ‘Don’t think they’ll be driving after us now!’

‘They’ve still got bikes, though,’ Chase told him. ‘And horses.’

‘Well, they shoot horses, don’t they?’ With a cackle, Bluey fired another sweep to force the Taliban into cover, then hurried after Stikes.

Chase grimaced at the joke, then took up the rear. The AK fire was now more intermittent, but also better aimed. The remaining Taliban had overcome their initial shock.

The hostages were past the bushes, Mac directing them down the slope. A small object, spitting sparks, arced from the scrub – a smoke grenade. A thick grey cloud spewed from it. A second followed, putting an obscuring curtain between the team and the Taliban.

‘Hugo, Eddie, come on!’ Mac called as Green and Baine jumped up from their hiding place. ‘Choppers are on their way. Move it!’

The two stragglers needed no further prompting, Chase catching up with his commanding officer on the hillside. ‘Mac, those women – they’re all dead!’

‘What? How did the Terries even get near them?’

‘They didn’t. It was Stikes – that bastard shot them!’

Mac’s expression was one of shock, but before he could reply a shout from Starkman interrupted them. ‘Mac! Hammer Four-One is inbound, three minutes away. They want to know if we need support.’

A crackle of AK fire came from behind them. The Taliban were through the smokescreen. ‘I’d say that was a yes,’ Mac told Starkman with a wry grin as the soldiers shot back. He raised his voice. ‘Strobes on, strobes on! Gunship inbound!’

Chase switched on the infrared beacon attached to his equipment webbing. The strobe light’s pulses were invisible to the naked eye – but would flash brilliantly on the approaching aircraft’s targeting screens, warning its gunners of the location of friendly forces.

In theory.

‘Alexander!’ Mac shouted as Starkman made the call. ‘Get the civvies to the landing zone – take Will and Kev. The rest of us will cover you. Go!’

Stikes gave him a thumbs-up and took the lead. Chase saw that despite the danger the hostages were slowing, already worn down by maltreatment and hunger. And the landing zone was still over half a mile away.

Worse, the Taliban were gaining. They were moving cautiously down the slope, keeping in cover behind rocks, but they had the tactical advantages both of moving forward and having the higher ground, while the rescue team had to back up as they fired uphill.

‘Should we hold ’em off here?’ Chase shouted to Mac as they crouched behind adjacent boulders.

Mac expertly assessed the area. ‘Further back, nearer the entrance to the pass. If we can hold them from there, it’ll give the hostages time to reach the choppers.’ He pointed at a large rock. ‘Behind that. We can—’

‘RPG!’ screamed Starkman. Chase immediately scrunched down, covering his face and ears as a rocket-propelled grenade streaked down the slope and exploded less than thirty feet away. The rock protected him from the direct effects of the blast, but the detonation was still painfully loud at such close range. Stones and dirt rained over him. The warhead had been high explosive, not a shrapnel-filled anti-personnel charge, but this near it was no less dangerous.

Bluey, though further away, had been without cover and unable to do more than throw himself flat on Starkman’s warning. Chase saw the Australian clutch at his head. ‘Bluey! You okay?’

‘Those dirty little bastards!’ Bluey yelled back. ‘Copped a stone to my fucking noggin!’ Still on his stomach, he slithered round and fired his machine gun up the hill, then scrambled behind a jagged rock.

Bluey wasn’t the only person affected by the explosion. The hostages were still a hundred yards short of the pass – and panic consumed one of them. He broke from the group and ran for the closed canyon. ‘Green!’ shouted Stikes. ‘Get that idiot back here!’

Green followed – but the Taliban had already spotted the running figure. AKs barked, gritty dust spitting up from the ground around him. The Welshman rushed to tackle him—

Too late. The man was hit, spinning before dropping like a discarded doll. Green, only a couple of feet behind, was caught too, a round ripping into the side of his chest. He fell with a choked scream, trying to crawl behind the hostage’s body for what little protection it provided.

‘Man down!’ Mac cried. Chase swore. Green was exposed, over twenty yards from any usable cover. The Taliban kept firing. If they had another rocket, it would soon follow their bullets.

He knew what Mac’s plan would be before he said it. ‘Alexander, get the civvies to the choppers!’ the Scot yelled. ‘Kev, Jason, get Green. Everyone else – give them cover!’

Chase sprang up from behind his rock and opened fire, his C8 now on full auto. Conserving ammo was no longer a consideration; all that mattered was for himself, Mac, Castille and Bluey to force the Taliban to keep their heads down until Starkman and Baine recovered their wounded comrade.

He picked one AK flash and sprayed it with bullets until it stopped, then moved on to another. His magazine ran dry; he ducked and thumbed the release to eject the empty mag, pulling a replacement from his webbing and slotting it into place with a precise, intensely practised move before tugging back the rifle’s charging handle to chamber the first new round. The entire process took barely three seconds, and he rose to fire again.

Mac and Castille were just as efficient, the rattle of their guns getting louder as sustained fire burned out the suppressors. A shriek came from the hillside. Another Taliban down. But he couldn’t tell how many remained. Too many.

The onslaught had achieved its purpose, though – the AK fire had all but stopped. Chase glanced towards Green, seeing Starkman haul him upright, Baine running to assist. It would take both men to carry the wounded trooper to the landing zone, and while they were doing that the amount of fire they could provide would be extremely limited. The team was effectively down to five fighting men.

And it would soon be just four. Bluey’s withering storm of lead was now reduced to intermittent bursts as the Minimi’s ammunition supply ran low. The Australian only had one ammo load: two hundred rounds was normally more than enough.

Baine and Starkman supported Green, moving at a jog towards the pass. ‘Keep firing!’ Mac ordered as the thud of Kalashnikovs resumed. Chase sprayed one of the muzzle flashes with fire. He scored a hit. The AK flailed madly, blazing skywards before falling silent. Another magazine change, and now conservation was an issue – he only had one spare mag remaining.

Stikes and the hostages were out of sight, Baine, Starkman and Green nearing the pass. In the distance, Chase heard the thud of rotor blades.

‘Hugo, Bluey, move out!’ Mac called. ‘Eddie, cover them!’ He was about to say something else when his radio squawked. He crouched, struggling to hear the message over the noise of Bluey’s machine gun as the Australian and Castille retreated for the ravine.

Chase switched his Diemaco back to single-shot, trying to pick off the shooters up the hill. Bullets cracked off his cover; he flinched, shielding his eyes from flying stone chips, then snapped his sights on to the source of the fire and pulled the trigger. A dark shape beside a boulder flopped to the ground.

Green and his companions entered the pass, Bluey and Castille not far behind. ‘Eddie!’ Mac yelled. ‘Come on! The gunship’s—’

A rising high-pitched whine from the sky drowned him out—

An explosion ripped a crater out of the hillside sixty feet in front of Chase. The blast knocked him off his feet. His senses reeled as if he had taken a fierce punch to the head, a ringing rumble almost blotting out all other sounds. Somehow, he made out another shrill noise and clapped both hands to his ears. A second detonation shook the ground.

The air support had arrived.

Orbiting the battle zone was an American AC-130U ‘Spooky II’ gunship, a humble Hercules transport turned angel of death. Instead of cargo, it carried three cannons, ranging from a 25mm Gatling gun to a 105mm howitzer, jutting from its port side so they could be fixed on a target as the aircraft circled. The weapon that had just fired was a 40mm Bofors gun, an artillery piece originally designed to shoot at aircraft rather than from them. With its battery of sensors, a Spooky could locate and destroy ground forces from several miles away.

And Chase was in its sights. ‘I’m on your side, you fucking idiots!’ he shouted.

Another explosion, and a fourth, but higher up the hill. Chase hoped that meant the Bofors gunner had finally seen his strobe. He looked round. Mac was now at the pass, signalling frantically for the Englishman to follow.

He shook off the earth and grit the 40mm rounds had thrown on to him, realising he had lost his radio headset, and stood. His hearing returned, the distant pom-pom-pom of the Bofors accompanied by the shriek of incoming shells. More explosions on the hillside. He ran for the pass. Mac gave him one final wave, then sprinted after the rest of his men. The Spooky would keep the Taliban pinned down with its awesome firepower, giving the rescue team all the time they needed to reach the waiting choppers—

The Bofors stopped. One last explosion, and the battlefield behind him fell silent. Either the Taliban had been completely obliterated, or . . .

Chase looked to the sky, and realised the battle wasn’t over. The Spooky’s orbit had carried it behind part of the mountain, placing a barrier of rock between its weapons and their target. The gunship would already be gaining altitude to compensate, but the surviving Taliban now had a chance to continue the pursuit.

Feet pounding, he reached the pass. Mac was over a hundred yards ahead. No gunfire from behind—

A new noise instead. Engines. Not the AC-130 clearing the mountains, but motorbikes.

The Taliban were riding after him.

Two headlights swept down the hill, glare obscuring the bikes and their riders – but if the Taliban had any remaining rockets, one of the men would surely be carrying the RPG-7.

The entire mission was now in jeopardy. An RPG round could easily bring down a helicopter.

Ahead, the ravine opened out on to the plain. Mac was already clear, running towards a sputtering red flare marking the pick-up point. The choppers had not yet touched down, the Black Hawk moving in while the Little Bird circled. Stikes had radioed the pilots to tell them they were collecting only fifteen men rather than the expected twenty; it would be a tight squeeze, but they could all cram into the Black Hawk to save the MH-6 from having to land.

All the eggs in one basket. They didn’t know about the bikes.

Another glance back as he left the pass told Chase that he would never reach the landing zone before the Taliban caught up. Instead he charged for the giant spearhead of rock poking from the sands.

The Black Hawk was about fifty feet above the ground, dust swirling out in concentric rings beneath its rotor vortex. The men at the landing zone shielded their faces from the gritty onslaught. Mac still hadn’t reached them, looking for Chase – and seeing the headlights. He tried to shout a warning to the others, but his voice was lost under the helicopter’s thunderous noise.

The lead bike, two men aboard, burst out of the pass. It turned to follow Chase – until its driver spotted the more tempting targets on the plain. It swung back, the man riding pillion raising his weapon.

The RPG-7. Loaded and ready.

The second bike roared after its original prey, the passenger firing his AK-47 at Chase as he dived behind the rock. Bullets splintered the stone beside him, but he couldn’t shoot back – his attention was fixed on another target.

The Taliban with the rocket launcher took aim, the RPG-7’s sights fixed on the Black Hawk as it hovered the final few feet above the ground. The helicopter was two hundred metres away, large, barely moving – an unmissable target.

Mac’s shouted warnings finally reached the soldiers. They dropped, pulling the hostages down with them.

Chase fired his C8 on full auto, emptying his magazine into both the bike’s riders. The old Soviet motorcycle swerved . . .

But the trigger had already been pulled.

The rocket-propelled grenade burst from the launcher as the bike tumbled. It streaked past Mac and hissed over the men on the ground, heading for the Black Hawk—

Thrown off target, the conical warhead only caught the cockpit canopy a glancing blow. The rocket spiralled away, exploding harmlessly fifty yards beyond the helicopter.

But the danger was far from over. The pilot had jerked in fright at the impact. The Black Hawk rolled sideways. The tips of its rotor blades dropped towards the ground, carving through the air like a giant circular saw . . .

Straight at Castille.

The Belgian froze as he saw the helicopter bearing down on him. The blades buzzed at his face—

The pilot yanked the collective control lever and applied full throttle. The Black Hawk lurched upwards, engines screaming - and the rotor passed six inches over Castille’s head, the force of the displaced air knocking him flat. ‘Merde!’ he screeched, hurriedly patting his hands over the top of his skull to check it was still attached.

The gunman on the second bike kept shooting. Chase scrabbled backwards as more bullets cracked off the rock, but the Afghan would have a direct line of fire in moments.

And he was out of ammo.

Three seconds to reload, but he didn’t have even that long—

Instead, he flung the empty rifle with all his might. It arced through the air – and hit the bike’s driver hard in the face as he rounded the formation. The bike crashed down on its side, throwing the two Taliban into the sand.

The gunman groaned, then realised he still had his AK. He saw a figure in the moonlight and brought up the rifle—

Chase fired first, four shots from the Sig P228 he had snatched from his chest holster slamming into the man’s upper body. The Taliban slumped lifelessly to the ground. The driver struggled to rise – and another two shots to his head dropped him beside his comrade.

Breathing heavily, hands trembling from a burst of adrenalin, Chase lowered the Sig and looked across the plain. The Black Hawk had finally touched down, the rescue team bundling the hostages into the cabin.

But now he could hear another sound echoing through the pass. Not the roar of more motorcycle engines.

The pounding of hooves.

‘Oh, fucking pack it in!’ he gasped. The bike’s engine was still sputtering, but the front wheel was buckled. Unrideable.

Two options. Either sprint for the Black Hawk, and be trampled or shot before he reached it . . . or make sure it took off safely and got the hostages and his comrades home.

The decision was made before the thought was completed. He recovered his rifle and loaded his final magazine. The last few men boarded the Black Hawk. Even from this distance he could pick out Mac’s grey hair, his commander – his mentor, his friend – waving for him to run to the chopper. Chase instead crouched and took aim.

The first horseman emerged from the pass, hunched low on his galloping steed with an AK raised in one hand—

Chase tracked him, firing twice and bowling the Taliban off his horse. But his rifle’s suppressor was now completely burned out, and the shots had given away his position. Another horseman appeared, and a third, charging at him.

A mechanical roar: the Black Hawk taking off. Three more riders thundered from the ravine, going after the helicopter as it lumbered into the air. AK-47s chattered, tracers streaking after the rising aircraft. Moonlight flashed off another RPG-7 as a Taliban slowed his mount to take aim. A burst from Chase’s C8 cut him down before he could fire. The chopper was safe, but now the nearest riders were almost upon him—

A sizzling chainsaw rasp from above – and men and horses alike were torn apart by a laser-like stream of orange fire.

The Little Bird swooped down, its twin six-barrelled Miniguns blazing as each unleashed over sixty rounds per second at the Taliban forces. It pulled up sharply, pivoting to follow the surviving horsemen, then fired again. Hundreds of spent shell casings hailed down around Chase, one plinking off the top of his head and singeing his scalp. ‘Great, now I’ll have a fucking bald spot,’ he muttered as he fired at the last of the horsemen. The shot hit home, but it became academic a moment later when the man literally disintegrated under the force of the MH-6’s firepower.

The Miniguns stopped, but he could still hear more horses approaching. Holding back a curse, he looked up at the Little Bird as it started a rapid descent towards him.

No time for it to land. This would have to be a moving pickup, and he would only have one chance . . .

He glimpsed the pilot in the green light of his instruments, his night vision gear making him look like a cyborg. The Little Bird was coming right at him, slowing, but still travelling at twenty miles an hour.

Chase jumped—

The skid slammed against his chest. He wrapped his arms round the forward support strut and clung for dear life as the MH-6 went to full power. The helicopter surged skywards, Chase flapping beneath it like a banner.

He turned his face away from the downwash to see the plain wheeling below – and tracer fire rising up after him as more Taliban came out of the pass—

They disappeared in a tremendous explosion as the AC-130 reacquired its targets and, friendly forces now clear, fired its big gun. The blast from the 105mm shell collapsed part of the ravine, burying the Taliban under tons of rubble. More explosions ripped along the length of the pass as the Bofors gunner dealt with any stragglers.

The Little Bird levelled out, flying after the Black Hawk. Chase heard a voice; he squinted up to see the pilot shouting at him from the doorless cockpit. ‘Are you all right, man?’

Despite the fact that he was dangling from a speeding helicopter a thousand feet above hostile territory, Chase still managed a grin. ‘Never better, mate. What’s the inflight movie?’

The Black Hawk landed at the Coalition base, the Little Bird close behind it. The MH-6 had briefly touched down, once both aircraft reached nominally friendly territory, so that Chase could climb aboard; he leapt from the cabin and ran to the larger helicopter. Three men from the Royal Army Medical Corps were waiting, two bearing a stretcher and a third to attend to the wounded Green. He was carried out of the Black Hawk by Starkman and Baine, and quickly whisked away by the medics.

The hostages came next, and were escorted to a temporary building nearby. Finally, the remaining soldiers clambered from the helicopter, Mac ruefully looking after Green. The others were simply relieved to have made it back in one piece. ‘Christ,’ said Bluey, rubbing his shaved head, ‘that was a bit fierce.’

Starkman saw Chase. ‘Damn, almost thought we’d lost you,’ said the Texan. ‘You okay?’

Chase ignored him, eyes locked on another man: Stikes. The captain stepped out, donning his beret and adjusting it to a precise angle. ‘Seven hostages rescued, and it would have been eight if that idiot hadn’t panicked. Not bad.’ He saw Chase step towards him. ‘So Chase, you—’

Chase smashed a brutal punch into his face. Stikes’s regal nose broke with a wet snap, and he fell back against the fuselage. ‘You fucker!’ Chase shouted.

Baine lunged at Chase, but Mac intervened, hauling the Yorkshireman back from the fallen officer. ‘Eddie, for Christ’s sake!’

A hand to his bleeding nose, Stikes pulled himself upright as the other team members looked on in bewilderment. ‘It’s a court-martial offence to strike a superior officer, Chase!’ he cried. ‘You’ll get five years for an unprovoked attack – which you all witnessed!’

‘Unprovoked, my arse!’ Chase said furiously. ‘You pointed a fucking gun at my head!’

‘Eddie!’ Mac snapped. ‘Sergeant!’ Still tight-lipped with rage, Chase stood at attention. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘This bastard murdered five civilians – five women, sir,’ Chase said through clenched teeth. ‘They were unarmed and tied prisoners of the Taliban, but he shot them – then aimed his weapon at me.’

‘That’s a complete lie, Major,’ Stikes responded. ‘I did no such thing.’

Mac frowned. ‘But the Taliban did have female prisoners. Did you see them?’

Stikes’s cold eyes didn’t blink as he answered. ‘No sir, I did not.’

‘That’s a complete lie,’ Chase hissed.

‘The only non-hostages I saw had been designated as hostiles under the rules of engagement.’ Stikes moved his hand from his nose; red liquid trickled over his lips. ‘Damn it! Sir, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get this dealt with. And then’ – a venomous look at his attacker – ‘I’ll make a full written report so charges can be drawn against Sergeant Chase!’

Mac nodded, and Stikes strutted away. The Scot hustled Chase out of earshot of the others. ‘If you have a grievance against a superior, Eddie,’ he rumbled, ‘there are well-defined procedures. That was not one of them!’

Chase forced his anger back under control. ‘Sorry, sir. I mean, I’m sorry for causing you any trouble – not for decking Stikes! It’s the bloody least that he deserved. He murdered those women in cold blood.’

‘Nobody else saw anything. It’s your word against his.’

‘Mac, you know me. And you know Stikes.’ He gave Mac an almost pleading look. ‘Who do you believe?’

Mac remained silent for a long moment. ‘Eddie,’ he said at last, ‘however this turns out, there will be consequences for you – for your career. The plain and simple fact is that you punched an officer in the face in front of half a dozen witnesses.’

‘I’ll take whatever comes to me.’

‘I’d expect nothing less. But . . . as you say, I know you. And I know Stikes. So when the court-martial comes – which it will, he’s got connections that will see to that – I’ll do everything I can to support you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘And’ – a hint of a smile – ‘I’d be remiss as your commanding officer if I didn’t remind you to get straight on with a full written report of your own, describing everything you witnessed on the mission. Our well-defined procedures are there for everyone’s benefit, not just officers’. If, as a result of that, an investigation is warranted . . . again, you’ll have my full support.’

Chase gave the older man an appreciative look. ‘Thank you, sir!’

‘Well, you’d better get to it, sergeant. In the meantime, I’m going to see if I can find a shower in this bloody hole.’ Mac walked off, then stopped and looked back. ‘By the way, Eddie, you did excellent work tonight. Well done.’

Chase saluted, and Mac continued on his way. The Englishman stood for a moment, then took out and lit a long-awaited cigarette.

1

New York City:

Eleven Years Later

Eddie Chase strolled into the office with his hands behind his back and a knowing smile on his face. ‘Ay up, love.’

His wife looked up from her laptop with a faint frown. ‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Nina Wilde, flicking a strand of red hair away from her face. ‘We’re going to be late.’

‘We’ve still got ten minutes. Anyway, I’m amazed you noticed I’d gone, since you haven’t lifted your nose out of that lot all morning.’ He glanced at the stacked paperwork on her desk.

‘Don’t be a smart-ass.’ She eyed him more closely, noticing his expectant smirk. ‘What have you got behind your back?’

He stepped forward. ‘Oh, nothing. Just . . . ’ With a flourish, he dropped a large brown paper bag beside her computer. ‘Lunch.’

Nina did a double-take as she recognised the logo on the bag. ‘Aldo’s Deli?’ Her frown was replaced by surprised delight. ‘Wait, you went all the way to Aldo’s just to get me a sandwich?’

Eddie shrugged, looking out at the view of Manhattan beyond the windows of the United Nations building. ‘It’s only in the East Village. It’s not that far.’

She opened the bag, and her look brightened still further. ‘You didn’t.’

‘I did. Your favourite. Extra-peppered pastrami on rye, with lettuce, tomatoes, pickled onions, not regular ones . . . and Aldo’s special chilli sauce. Just like you used to get when we lived down there.’

Nina almost reverently unwrapped the sandwich. ‘That was over four years ago. I can’t believe you did this.’ She was about to take a bite when she paused. ‘Why did you do this?’

‘What, a bloke can’t do something nice for his wife once in a while?’

‘Not when she knows him as well as I know you.’ A sly smile. ‘This wouldn’t be a peace offering, would it?’

‘Pfft, don’t be daft. What’ve I got to apologise for? I’m right.’

Her green eyes narrowed, the smile fading. ‘Don’t even start.’ A discussion the previous night about the week’s main news story had somehow degenerated into a full-blown argument, and the atmosphere had still been frosty even over breakfast. A New Yorker named Jerry Rosenthal was on trial for having killed the man accused of raping his daughter after the case against him collapsed. To Nina it had been an open-and-shut case of revenge-driven vigilantism, but Eddie had very different opinions.

Which he still held. ‘What, so you’re saying that if it had been your daughter, you’d be happy to let the guy walk the streets because of some forensics cock-up? We know he did it, he just got away with it on a technicality.’

‘We don’t know he did it,’ she said irritably. ‘You weren’t there – you didn’t see what happened.’

‘Neither did you.’

‘Which is why we have courts to decide whether a person’s guilty or not. And why we have courts to decide on the sentence – rather than some guy appointing himself judge, jury and executioner. That’s not justice.’

‘Sounds like it to me. You know somebody’s done something bad and thinks they’ve got away with it? Boom. Kill the fucker.’

Nina huffed. ‘Eddie, I really don’t want to get into this again. You know what? I’m just going to eat my sandwich – for which thank you very much, by the way. And,’ she added, ‘you are not going to get the last word just because my mouth’s full!’

‘As if I would,’ said Eddie, who had been planning to do exactly that.

She was about to take a bite when there was a knock at the door. Before she could ask who it was, Macy Sharif entered. ‘Hey, Nina. Hi, Eddie.’ The archaeology student, who had helped them discover the Pyramid of Osiris beneath the Egyptian desert the previous year, had accepted Nina’s invitation to spend part of her summer vacation as an intern at the International Heritage Agency before completing her final year of study. ‘Dr Bellfriar sent me to get you.’

‘Bet I know what he’s going to say,’ said Eddie with a mocking grin. ‘Eight months of looking at the things, and he’ll tell us . . . they’re made of stone. Thank you, that’ll be fifty grand plus expenses.’

‘Oh, he’s got way more to say than that,’ said Macy, the Englishman’s sarcasm fluttering past her unnoticed. ‘I should know. I had to make all his PowerPoint slides.’

‘Not enjoying your current assignment?’ Nina asked in an impish tone.

‘No, no, it’s fine!’ said Macy hurriedly, not wanting to seem ungrateful. ‘Just that I was hoping to do something a bit more fieldworky. With you.’

Nina patted one of the stacks of documents. ‘Funny, I was hoping to do some fieldwork too! But then some idiot tried to kill a bunch of world leaders, and we made a find that changes the face of archaeology, and, well, high-up people want to know about it. In triplicate.’

‘Maybe Bellfriar’s found something that’ll give you an excuse,’ Eddie suggested.

Nina looked hopefully at Macy, who tried unsuccessfully to hide an apologetic expression. ‘Anyway,’ said the young woman, ‘you can see for yourself. He’s with Mr Penrose and the others in the conference room.’

Nina took a quick bite from her sandwich before getting up from her desk. ‘What?’ she asked Eddie as she chewed. ‘I haven’t had lunch yet; I’m hungry. Come on.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘If I do, so do you.’ She shooed him from the office.

Macy led the way to the conference room. As well as Dr Donald Bellfriar, also present were several United Nations officials headed by Sebastian Penrose, who acted as liaison between the UN proper and its semi-independent cultural protection agency. ‘Ah, hello, Nina,’ said the bespectacled, officious Englishman.

‘Sebastian,’ Nina replied. ‘I didn’t expect so many people.’

‘Everyone loves a mystery,’ Penrose said. ‘I think they’re hoping Dr Bellfriar has the solution.’

Nina shared a knowing look with Macy. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

Everyone took their seats, Macy working a laptop and projector as the Oregonian geologist carefully smoothed his sweeping silver hair before addressing his audience. ‘Good afternoon, everyone. Before I start, I’d like to say how great it’s been to work with the IHA on this. I suppose that when archaeology can’t provide the answers, it’s time to call on the rock stars!’ He chuckled immodestly at his pun, which was received with appropriately stony silence. ‘Rock stars? No? Anyway, thank you, Dr Wilde – and thank you, Miss Sharif, for all your assistance. And for being enjoyable company.’ Macy beamed.

‘He was probably enjoying the view more than the conversation,’ Eddie whispered to Nina.

‘Shush,’ she whispered back, although he had a point. While Macy had spent her internship modestly dressed by her standards, in the formal surroundings of the UN the beautiful Miamian’s predilection for tight designer clothing made her stand out like a bikini model in a Saudi mosque.

Bellfriar began his presentation proper, opening a case to reveal his subjects: a pair of small statues, crude human figures carved from an odd purple stone. The first had been found by Nina, Eddie and Macy inside the Pyramid of Osiris; the second, stored with stolen cultural treasures in a former Cold War bunker beneath the glacial ice of Greenland. He summarised the circumstances of each discovery before continuing: ‘Now, despite their best efforts, Interpol have so far been unable to find out where the second statue was stolen from, and since neither relic appears to be the product of any known ancient culture that would seem to be a dead end in the search for answers. Fortunately, other branches of science can provide a different perspective. Miss Sharif ?’

Macy tapped at the laptop, projecting the first slide on to the conference room’s screen. It showed the two statues placed side by side. ‘As you can see,’ said Bellfriar, ‘the statues are clearly part of a set, and meant to fit together. Note how the arms are positioned so they’ll interlock. But as you see here,’ he nodded, and Macy clicked on to the next slide, ‘it’s obvious that the set is incomplete.’

The new image showed the statues from directly above. They had been positioned in such a way that, facing outwards with one shoulder touching, they formed two sides of a triangle – and, as Bellfriar had said, it was evident that a third figurine would perfectly complete the group. ‘Using simulation software,’ said the geologist proudly, ‘I can show you what the missing one would look like.’ Another slide, and the two statues were shown flanking a computer-generated image of a third. All three were broadly similar, the only appreciable difference being the position of the arms. ‘And here’s how they fit together . . . ’

The photos of the figures were replaced by CG copies which began a showy animated display, spinning round each other before slotting into a shoulder-to-shoulder triptych. The UN observers seemed impressed, but Nina was less so, having seen the IHA’s own computer simulation of the missing figure over seven months earlier. ‘That was one of the first things we realised when we received the second statue,’ she said. ‘There was – and hopefully still is – a third. The question is, where?’

‘Well, before we can ask where,’ said Bellfriar amiably, ‘we first have to ask what. As in, what are the statues made of?’ He indicated the two figures in the case. ‘As you see, they have an unusual colour, this strong purple, with a rather vitreous lustre. Some form of bornite was my first thought, but the copper content in the scrape sample I took was far too low – almost non-existent, in fact. But the density of the rock was surprisingly high, so it had an appreciable metal content . . . ’

Nina glanced at Eddie as Bellfriar launched into a detailed account of his mineralogical tests. His eyes had glazed over. She tapped his foot with hers. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Geology’s even more boring than archaeology.’

She was about to jab his foot again, this time with her high heel rather than her toe, when Bellfriar’s words caught her full attention. ‘. . . which brought me to my conclusion: the rock from which the statues were carved was probably mesosideritic.’

It took a moment, but the term produced a match from Nina’s mental database. ‘A meteorite?’

Bellfriar was impressed. ‘You know about meteorites, Dr Wilde?’

‘From an archaeological standpoint. There was a dagger made from meteoric iron in Tutankhamun’s tomb, and some Eskimo and Native American tribes also made ceremonial weapons from it. And there was an East African tribe that worshipped a fallen meteorite. But apart from that, only really what I remember from Astronomy 101.’

‘Well, I can give you a brief refresher course,’ said Bellfriar, chuckling again. ‘A mesosiderite is a stony-iron meteorite, which as the name suggests is made up of a combination of rock and metal. They’re very rare – there are fewer than a hundred and fifty known examples, I believe.’

‘You said it’s probably a . . . a mesosiderite,’ said Penrose, almost stumbling over the word. ‘Can’t you be sure?’

‘Not without cutting one of the statues in two to make a microscope slide, and I doubt Dr Wilde – or the Egyptian government – would be happy about that! But the tests I could do seemed reasonably conclusive. Although,’ he added, ‘if there’s any way at all I could get a larger sample, I’d very much like to carry out further tests. The rock has some unusual properties.’

‘In what way?’ asked Nina.

‘The density, for one thing – either the iron content is much higher than I’d expect, or there are heavier metals in there as well. There are also traces of organic compounds.’

Eddie gave the statues a deeply suspicious look. ‘Wait, there was something alive inside the meteor? Like the Blob?’

Bellfriar laughed. ‘No, no. If a compound is “organic”, then chemically it just means it contains carbon. Meteorites might have carried the precursors of life to earth, though; there was a famous find in Australia, the Murchison meteorite, which contained amino acids. I don’t know if that was the case here – but I did notice something else.’ He turned to Macy. ‘Miss Sharif, can you skip forward to . . . I think slide seventeen?’

Macy tapped the keyboard. Slides flashed on the screen, stopping at an image of one of the statues’ surface taken through a microscope. At extreme magnification, the stone was a fractal microcosm of a rocky landscape, with what seemed almost like man-made features running through it: a fine grid-like pattern.

‘Looks like a developer’s laying the ground for a new subdivision,’ said Nina.

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ replied Bellfriar. ‘I wouldn’t want to live there, though – not a lot of space. The lines are only about fifty micrometres apart, less than the width of a human hair.’

‘What is it?’ Eddie asked.

‘Some kind of carbon matrix infused into the meteoric iron. Naturally formed, of course – it looks artificial, but on this scale so do a lot of processes. What’s interesting is that it’s greatly increased the hardness of the rock, as if the whole thing has been reinforced with carbon nanotubes. Normally, this kind of stone would be around a five or six on the Mohs scale – diamond tops the scale at ten, by the way,’ he added for the benefit of the non-scientists. ‘The statues are actually harder than the porcelain streak plate I initially tried to use to test them, so on the Mohs scale they’re at least a seven – stronger than quartz.’

His description had sparked another of Nina’s memories – this time from personal experience. ‘The rock,’ she began, her cautious, probing tone immediately catching Eddie’s attention, ‘does it have any other unusual properties? Like, say . . . high electrical conductivity?’

‘Actually, yes,’ said Bellfriar, surprised. ‘It’s down to the iron content, of course, but it was higher than I expected. How did you know?’

‘It just reminded me of something I’d seen before,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘But it’s not important. What else have you found out?’

Bellfriar returned to his presentation, but Nina was no longer listening, instead running through theories of her own. When he finished, twenty minutes later, she thanked him for his work, then waited for the United Nations officials to conclude their pleasantries, trying not to seem too eager for everyone to leave.

‘What is it?’ whispered Eddie.

‘I’ll tell you in private,’ she replied under her breath, before calling across the room. ‘Macy?’

Macy was shutting down the laptop. ‘Yeah?’

‘Can you take the statues to my office, please?’

‘Taking them back off me so quickly, Dr Wilde?’ said Bellfriar in jovial mock offence. ‘I hope you’re not disappointed that I didn’t pinpoint where they came from?’

‘No, not at all,’ Nina told him as the puzzled Macy closed the case containing the statues. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about. Oh, Sebastian,’ she added as Penrose was about to leave, ‘can I have a quick word with you? We need to finalise the details of, uh . . . the Atlantis excavations.’

Penrose covered his momentary confusion – the IHA’s undersea archaeological work at the ruins of Atlantis was already under way – and nodded as he left. Macy, carrying the case, went out after him. Nina and Eddie followed, and the four met again in Nina’s office.

‘Okay,’ said Eddie, ‘what the hell was all that about?’

‘A good question,’ said Penrose. ‘I take it you’ve realised something, Nina.’

‘I think so,’ she replied, shoving the papers – and the sandwich – on her desk aside to clear a space. ‘Macy, put the case down here.’

Macy obeyed. Nina opened the case and regarded the two crude statues. ‘When Bellfriar mentioned carbon nanotubes, it made me think of something I’ve seen before. Excalibur.’

‘Excalibur?’ exclaimed Macy. ‘What, the Excalibur? As in King Arthur?’

‘That’s the one,’ said Eddie.

‘Wow! I knew you found King Arthur’s tomb, but I didn’t know you found Excalibur as well.’

‘We did, but we . . . lost it,’ said Nina. That wasn’t quite true, as she knew exactly where it was: she and Eddie had decided to hide it again to keep it out of the wrong hands. ‘But it had some very special properties . . . and they sounded a lot like what Bellfriar just described. Eddie, can you close the blinds? I need the room as dark as possible.’

Eddie began to lower the blinds. ‘We’ve been married for a year and a half – we don’t have to do it with the lights off any more.’

‘Ha ha,’ said Nina, not amused. ‘Ignore him, he’s joking,’ she added to Macy, sensing that the younger, far less inhibited woman was about to ask a very personal question. ‘But one of Excalibur’s properties was that it was made from a superconductive metal – and it could conduct more than just electricity.’

The blinds were now closed, the office in a gloomy twilight. Nina reached for a statue. ‘Okay, let’s see if I’m right . . . ’

She picked it up – and the stone glowed faintly, the light quickly fading to nothing.

Penrose’s eyes widened, and Macy gasped. ‘What was that?’ she said.

‘That was earth energy,’ said Nina. ‘It’s a network of lines of natural power that flow around the planet, and converge in certain places. If you’re in one of those places and the earth energy is strong enough, you can tap into it and use it – if you have a superconducting material to make the connection.’

‘Should Miss Sharif be seeing this?’ asked Penrose, a stern tinge to his voice making it clear that he thought she definitely shouldn’t.

‘I’ll vouch for her,’ said Nina, giving Macy a quick reassuring smile. ‘Besides, she discovered this statue, and I gave her the job of finding out more about it – I think this counts. And it beats making PowerPoint slides.’

‘Nice slides, by the way,’ Eddie told Macy with a grin. ‘Almost no spelling mistakes!’

Macy pouted as Nina returned the first statue to the case and picked up the other. Again, a shimmering glow ran briefly over the figure’s surface before disappearing. Nina was about to put the statue back down, then changed her mind and picked up the first once more. This time, nothing happened – until she put the two figurines together, linking them shoulder to shoulder in the same way as Bellfriar’s slide. Both statues glowed, the light slightly stronger than before. The effect lasted for a few seconds before dwindling.

Macy hesitantly touched the figures, but nothing happened. ‘Why did they do that? And how come it never happened before? Dr Bellfriar had them for months, and he never saw anything like this.’

‘It never happened before because only certain people can cause the effect,’ said Nina. ‘People like . . . me. I don’t know how or why – the best theory is that it’s genetic – but there’s something about my body’s bioelectric field that lets me channel earth energy through a superconductor.’ She opted, for now, not to explain to her friend that her genetic heritage went all the way back to the lost civilisation of Atlantis, destroyed eleven thousand years before – and that the actions of other Atlantean descendants had almost brought about a global genocide. ‘We discovered it when we found Excalibur.’

‘But you’ve held the statues before,’ said Eddie. ‘Loads of times. They never lit up like that.’

‘Maybe they did, and we just didn’t notice. Open the blinds.’ Nina put down the figures as Eddie did so, daylight flooding back into the room. She picked up the statues again. If the strange glow had returned, it was impossible to tell, the feeble effect overwhelmed even by indirect sunlight from outside.

‘So how are we going to proceed?’ asked Penrose. ‘The statues are somehow connected to earth energy, it seems – and earth energy is an IHA security issue. We know how dangerous it can be if the wrong person controls it.’

Nina looked into the roughly carved face of one of the statues, little more than a child’s drawing in three dimensions with a bump for a nose and vague indentations for eyes and mouth. ‘We’ve got two of the statues. There might be a third . . . somewhere. If there is, we have to find it. But first, we need to find out more about what we’re dealing with – and what these things can do.’

Macy looked surprised. ‘They’re just statues. What can they do?’

‘Excalibur was more than just a sword. When it was charged with earth energy, it could cut through literally anything. We know the Egyptian statue had some great significance – it was considered important enough to be sealed in the tomb of a god along with his greatest treasures. Maybe Osiris could channel its power – maybe that’s why he was regarded as a god. So we—’ She broke off as her desk phone rang, putting down the statue to answer it. ‘Hello?’

It was Lola Gianetti, Nina’s now four-months’ pregnant personal assistant. ‘Hi, Nina. Is Eddie with you? There’s a call for him.’

‘Can it wait? We’re in the middle of something.’

‘They said it was very important.’

‘Okay, he’s here. Hold on.’

She passed the phone to her husband. ‘Yeah, hello?’ he said, eyebrows rising as he recognised his sister’s voice. ‘Lizzie, hi. Haven’t heard from you for a while. What’s up?’

He moved away to continue the call with a modicum of privacy, leaving Nina, Penrose and Macy to regard the statues. ‘What do you have in mind?’ Penrose asked.

‘We need to find out what the earth energy effect actually does,’ said Nina. ‘Which means we need to take the statues to a convergence point.’ She chewed her lower lip, thinking. ‘There are four places where I know for sure that I can find earth energy. Problem is, one is in a Russian military base, another’s in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, and one’s buried under thousands of tons of rock out in the desert in a country where I’m not exactly welcome.’

‘Jeez,’ said Macy. ‘So where’s the fourth one? Inside a volcano?’

‘Fortunately, no,’ said Nina, smiling. ‘It’s somewhere a bit easier to reach – and a lot less hot. England. In King Arthur’s tomb at Glastonbury, actually.’ She looked across at Eddie to see if the mention of his home country had caught his attention, but he had his back to her, holding his conversation in a low voice.

‘And you want to take the statues there?’ Penrose asked.

‘Yes. I think the glow we saw just now is only a residual effect – if there are any lines of earth energy around New York, they’re either too weak or too far away to produce much power. If I take the statues to Glastonbury, with luck I’ll see what happens when they get a full charge.’

Penrose shook his head slightly. ‘I’m not sure the Egyptians will want their statue to leave IHA security. Or Interpol theirs, for that matter.’

‘We’ll work something out. But we should do it fast. As you said, it’s a security issue now.’

He thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘I’ll speak to Dr Assad in Egypt and the Interpol CPCU, see if I can persuade them to speed things along. I think you’re right, though; we need to look into this – and if there’s a third statue out there, we have to find it. When were you thinking about starting?’

‘About ten minutes ago,’ said Nina.

Penrose shot a rueful glance at the paperwork on her desk. ‘And the backlog relating to the Vault of Shiva? Or the meeting of the non-executive directors? Mr Glas particulalry wanted to meet you.’

‘That’s what I like about being in charge,’ she said with a broad grin. ‘I get to delegate!’

‘I’m sure Bill and Simone will be delighted to hear that,’ said Penrose, returning the smile. ‘Okay, I’ll make the calls. Keep me posted.’ He tipped his head to the two women, then left the office.

‘So you’re going to England?’ said Macy excitedly. ‘Can I come?’

Nina was caught off guard. ‘What?’

‘Well, you did give me the job of finding out more about these little guys . . . ’ She indicated the statues. When Nina didn’t respond immediately, she adopted a pleading tone. ‘Aw, please, Nina. It won’t cost the IHA anything – I can pay my own way.’

‘You mean your parents can.’

‘Well, what are parents for? And I’ll learn a hundred times more from you in the field than I would in an office.’

Nina reluctantly conceded the point; since Macy was an unpaid intern and not an IHA employee, there was technically nothing she could do to stop her from simply buying a plane ticket and tagging along. ‘Okay, I guess.’

‘Awesome!’ Macy clapped her hands together. ‘I’ve never been to England before. I’ll need new clothes. What should I wear?’

Before Nina could make a facetious suggestion, Eddie put down the phone. ‘Was that Elizabeth in England?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Eddie, voice oddly flat.

‘Kind of a nice coincidence. I think the best place to find out more about the statues is Glastonbury, so we can visit your folks while we’re over there.’

‘I’d be going to see them even if we were supposed to be flying to Timbuktu tomorrow,’ he said, grim-faced. ‘Nan’s in hospital.’

2

England

The Royal Bournemouth Hospital was on the coastal resort’s eastern outskirts, and Eddie and Nina’s first stop after leaving Heathrow airport. Eddie practically skidded the rented Ford Mondeo into a space in the car park and jumped out. Surprised at being left behind, Nina hurried after him. Entering the hospital, she found him at reception, demanding to know where to find his grandmother. The woman at the desk wasn’t keen on his uncharacteristically brusque manner, but gave the information. Again, Nina was left trailing behind as he strode through the corridors.

She caught up outside a room on the next floor, where familiar faces waited: Elizabeth Chase, Nina’s sister-in-law, and her daughter Holly. Both looked drawn and tired, but relieved to see the new arrivals. ‘Uncle Eddie!’ said Holly, hugging him. ‘And Nina, hi!’

‘How is she?’ asked Eddie after the greetings were concluded.

‘Much better than when I called you yesterday,’ said Elizabeth. ‘It’s lucky I was with her when she collapsed – the ambulance got her here very quickly, and she responded well to treatment. They’re probably going to discharge her this afternoon – they’re just doing a couple more tests.’

‘Thank God. Is it okay to see her?’

‘Yes, fine. Come on.’ Nina noted that Elizabeth checked her watch before opening the door, but thought no more of it as she followed them into the room.

The smell alone, the tang of industrial-strength disinfectants, set Eddie’s nerves on edge. Like most people he had a dislike of hospitals, but in his case it was enhanced by the memory of friends who had been taken into one and never come out. His unease increased when he saw the frail figure in the bed. ‘Hi, Nan,’ he said, more quietly than he had intended.

‘Edward!’ replied his grandmother, delight evident even behind the oxygen mask covering her mouth and nose. ‘Oh, my little lambchop, come here! Give your poor old nan a kiss.’

He went to the bedside and kissed her cheek, letting her embrace him as best she could around the mask’s hose. ‘How are you, Nan?’

She released him, a small but deep cough escaping her throat. ‘I’ve been better. But it’s really picked me up, seeing you. And Nina too! It’s lovely to see you both again.’

‘We got here as fast as we could,’ he told her. ‘So they’ve got you on oxygen therapy?’

‘The best treatment for emphysema with a side effect of pulmonary hypertension, so we’ve been told,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Which would have been much less likely to have happened if you’d stopped smoking.’

Nan laughed faintly, coughing again. ‘At my age, there aren’t many pleasures left in life. Except seeing my family. Oh, I’m so happy that you came, Edward. I worry about you over there in America.’

‘How come?’ he asked.

‘Well, what if you get ill or have an accident? I’ve heard horrible stories about American hospitals, the way they throw you out on the street if you don’t have enough money, being charged hundreds of dollars for an aspirin . . . ’

‘It’s not quite that bad,’ said Nina, amused.

‘So they’re going to let you go home this afternoon?’ Eddie asked.

Nan nodded. ‘Elizabeth wants me to stay with her, but I’d rather go back to my own house.’

‘No, you’re staying with us, Nan,’ Elizabeth insisted. She indicated the oxygen cylinder beside the bed. ‘You need to keep the mask on until the doctors say you’re better, and you can’t possibly carry that tank up the stairs on your own.’

Nan seemed less than happy at being told what to do by her granddaughter, but acquiesced. ‘Don’t worry, Nan,’ Eddie said. ‘I’ll help you with all this stuff.’

‘Oh, thank you. Are you going to be here long? I know you’re both very busy.’

‘Don’t know yet. Nina’s got a work thing, but we’ll probably be around for a few days.’

‘Good. It would be lovely if you could take me for a walk while you’re here.’

‘Ahem,’ said Holly, pointing at a wheelchair.

Nan frowned. ‘Oh, all right. If you could take me for a roll!’

‘No problem, Nan,’ said Eddie. He glanced round as the door opened, expecting to see a doctor entering. ‘Maybe tomorrow . . . ’ He tailed off at the sight of the man who came into the room.

At first, Nina had no idea who the new arrival might be – until with a start she realised that his eyes were just like those of Eddie and Elizabeth. A relative. Beyond that, his appearance had more in common with her sister-in-law than her husband; he was taller than Eddie by at least four inches, face lean and tapered rather than square, lithe even through the inevitable spread of late middle age – she guessed him to be around sixty. Despite this, he was still clearly highly active, carrying himself almost with a swagger in his expensive smart-casual clothing.

‘Well, well,’ he said on seeing Eddie. ‘What a surprise!’ The wink he gave to Elizabeth showed it was nothing of the sort.

‘Yeah,’ Eddie replied, glaring at his sister.

‘So,’ said the man, ‘long time no see, Edward.’

The scathing reply Eddie wanted to give was tempered by the presence of his grandmother and niece. Instead, he said, ‘Yeah, it’s been a while. Twenty-two years.’

The uncomfortable pause that followed was ended when Holly skipped across the room to embrace the newcomer. ‘Hi, Grandad!’

‘Hiya, hiya!’ he replied. ‘How’s my favourite granddaughter?’

‘Your only granddaughter,’ she pointed out.

‘Well, that makes you even more special, doesn’t it?’ He kissed her cheek, then released her and regarded Nina. ‘And Holly’s told me a lot about you. You must be Nina.’

‘That’s right,’ Nina said. ‘So you must be . . . ’ She knew, but still nudged Eddie for a proper introduction.

Eddie’s contempt was barely concealed. ‘This is my – dad.’ The momentary pause, Nina realised, was to cover what had become almost a conditioned reflex; on the rare occasions when he mentioned his father, the younger Chase almost invariably preceded it with an insulting adjective.

‘Larry Chase,’ said the man in question, extending a hand. She shook it. ‘Great to meet such a big celebrity.’

‘I wouldn’t call myself that,’ she replied, extricating herself from his firm grip.

‘But you’re certainly famous. I don’t think anyone who saw the opening of the Sphinx on TV last year will forget you!’

Her cheeks prickled at the reminder of her unplanned global television appearance. ‘It’s an unfortunate by-product of the job.’

Larry smiled. ‘You’re being too modest.’ He turned to Nan. ‘So, how are you, Catherine?’

While he and Nan spoke, Eddie none too gently ushered Elizabeth into a corner. ‘Fucking hell, Lizzie!’ he hissed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?’

‘Because if I had, you would have found some excuse to avoid him,’ she replied in an icy whisper.

‘Yeah, because I don’t want anything to bloody do with him!’

‘I told you in New York last year that it was time you tried to mend some bridges. And when you asked me for his phone number, I thought you were going to do that – but since it’s now eight months later and nothing’s happened, I decided to move things along.’

Eddie had asked for the telephone number, after witnessing another estranged father and son reconciling, but in the end his deep-rooted resentments had prevented him from making the call. ‘You should have minded your own fucking business.’

‘And you should grow up,’ she snapped. ‘Like you said, it’s been over twenty years since you last saw each other. Dad’s changed; it’s time you did too.’

‘Only thing that’s changed about him is that he’s got less hair and more gut.’

‘The same could be said about you. For God’s sake, Eddie, the least you can do is be civil. For Nan’s sake, if nothing else.’

He couldn’t offer a counter to that. Fuming, he turned away from his sister, to see Larry engaged in conversation with Nina once more. He quickly returned to them, interposing himself to give his father an overt cold shoulder.

But it was too late. ‘Larry’s invited us for dinner tonight,’ said Nina, narrowing her eyes in disapproval of his unsubtle blocking manoeuvre.

‘Yeah? Shame we can’t make it.’

‘I’ve accepted.’

His face darkened. ‘Oh, you have, have you?’

‘Yes, I have. For both of us.’ She leaned round him to address Larry. ‘It’ll be a pleasure.’

Larry smiled. ‘I’ll tell my wife to make something special. Look forward to seeing you. Both.’ He said goodbye to his other family members, apologising for having to return to work, then with a wave and a jingle of his expensive gold wristwatch he departed.

‘Ooh, that was an unexpected pleasure,’ said Nan. ‘Wasn’t it, Edward?’

‘Yeah, it was unexpected,’ he replied through his teeth.

A doctor entered and went to Nan’s bedside. She had recovered enough to be discharged, he said; she would need to continue oxygen therapy for several days, but the severe breathing difficulty that had caused her hospitalisation had been eased and her blood pressure lowered. Eddie offered to help, but Elizabeth insisted that she and Holly could handle it, and that he and Nina should check into their hotel before meeting them at Elizabeth’s house. ‘That way,’ Elizabeth added, ‘you’ll have plenty of time to get ready before going to Dad’s tonight.’

‘I can’t wait,’ Eddie growled.

A few minutes later, he was less restrained. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nina!’ he barked as they cleared the hospital doors. ‘Why did you say yes to dinner? Lizzie sticking her bloody nose in I expect, but you? You’re my wife, you’re supposed to be on my side!’

‘Yes, I’m your wife,’ Nina shot back, ‘and hey, guess what that means? Larry’s my father-in-law! When he invites me to dinner, I can hardly flip the bird in his face. You’re the one who’s got problems with him, not me – I just met the man. I’m not going to be rude to him for no reason, especially not in front of Nan and Holly.’

‘Told you plenty of bloody reasons.’

‘You’re hardly an unbiased source. And it all happened a long time ago—’

‘It still fucking happened, though.’

‘Then maybe it’s time you put it behind you!’ she cried. ‘What happened with Girilal and Shankarpa in India certainly made you think about contacting him, so why didn’t you?’

‘Changed my mind.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cause my mind changed.’

‘That’s not an answer!’

‘I don’t fucking care! I don’t like it when people think they know what’s best for me, that’s all. I decided I didn’t want to see him; that should have been enough. But no, Lizzie had to stick her oar in, and then you backed her up!’

‘He’s still your father, Eddie. What would you have done if it had been Larry in that bed instead of Nan?’

They reached the car. ‘I wouldn’t have come.’

She was shocked by his coldness. ‘What?’

‘Look, he had an affair while my mum was dying of cancer!’ Eddie snarled. ‘Some things you just don’t forgive. I don’t, anyway. To be honest, I couldn’t give a shit if I never see him again as long as I live.’ He got into the Mondeo and slammed the door.

Nina entered on the other side. She sat in silence for a moment, then turned to him. ‘There’s something I never told you,’ she said quietly. ‘I once got into a huge fight with my parents – they were going on their expedition to Tibet right in the middle of my exams, and they absolutely refused to let me go with them, said my exams were more important. And I was so mad at them. I was a teenage girl being denied something she really wanted, so I said all kinds of things I wish I hadn’t. But they went without me anyway, and . . . that’s when they died.’

She lowered her head. ‘It was just a one-off thing, a stupid argument. I loved them. But . . . ’ She looked up at him, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. ‘I can’t change the past, I can’t bring them back. But I would give anything to have been able to apologise to them before they left. I’m not saying you’ve got anything to apologise for, but if you’ve got a chance to settle your differences you should take it. If this is the last time you ever see him, do you really want it to be like this?’

After a long pause, Eddie blew out a frustrated breath. ‘All right. We’ll go for dinner,’ he said, reluctance clear in every word. ‘But I’m only doing it for you, okay? Not for Lizzie, and definitely not for him.’

She wiped her eyes and smiled. ‘Thanks. But you’re not only doing it for me – you’re doing it for yourself too.’

He squeezed her hand, then started the car. ‘Well, whoever I’m doing it for, let’s hope it’s not a huge fucking mistake.’

3

Larry Chase’s home was not in Bournemouth, but further east along the coast, about nine miles from the busy port of Southampton. ‘Wow,’ said Nina as the Mondeo pulled up. ‘Your dad’s place is huge.’ It was an old red-brick farmhouse, but one that had been extensively renovated, surrounded by a couple of acres of lush grounds. A brand new silver Jaguar XKR sports coupé was parked outside, an open double garage revealing a black Range Rover and a lipstickred Mazda MX-5 roadster within. ‘He must be doing well for himself.’

‘Making a few quid was never one of his problems,’ Eddie said. ‘How he makes it . . . that’s another story.’ He got out of the car before she could ask him to elaborate.

Nina had made an effort to dress up, wearing a skirt and a pair of high heels. Eddie, however, was in his usual jeans, T-shirt and black leather jacket, not even having bothered to shave. He trudged to the front door and rang the bell as Nina joined him.

Larry opened the door. ‘Hello, welcome!’ he proclaimed. ‘Come inside. Here, let me.’ He took Nina’s jacket as she entered and hung it in a small cloakroom before turning to his son, but Eddie had already removed his own jacket and pointedly placed it on top of Nina’s. ‘I’m glad you’re both here. Elizabeth’s been on at me for ages to get in touch with you.’ He became more sombre. ‘I just wish it hadn’t taken your grandmother giving us all such a scare for it to happen.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Eddie said flatly.

‘But,’ Larry went on, brightening again, ‘it’s still an opportunity for us to bury the hatchet, I hope. Twenty-two years – it’s a long time. Too long, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes, I would,’ said Nina, when Eddie showed no sign of answering.

‘So would I. Anyway, come and meet my wife. Julie! Company’s here!’

A pretty blonde woman entered the hall, the heels of her black leather boots clacking on the polished tiles. ‘Hi, how are you?’ she said enthusiastically, kissing Nina on the cheek before doing the same to Eddie, to his discomfiture.

‘This is my wife, Julie,’ said Larry, putting an arm round her shoulder. ‘Julie, I’d like you to meet my son Eddie, and his wife, Nina.’

‘So, when did you get remarried?’ Eddie asked, tone more accusing than interested.

‘Two years ago,’ Julie told him.

‘Surprised Elizabeth didn’t tell you,’ Larry added.

Eddie smiled, with no warmth. ‘I didn’t ask her.’ He regarded the blonde, who was wearing a tight, low-cut satin dress in a vivid electric blue, as well as a plenitude of gold jewellery. ‘So, Julie. How old are you?’

‘Ah, come on, Eddie,’ said Nina, trying to keep things light. ‘You know you shouldn’t ask a lady her age.’ Admittedly, she was curious herself. Julie was considerably younger than her husband.

Julie flapped a hand, bracelets tinkling. ‘Oh, I don’t mind. I’m thirty-six.’

‘Thirty-six?’ Eddie exclaimed.

‘I know, it’s a bit of an age gap. But that doesn’t matter when you love each other, does it?’ She rested her head on Larry’s shoulder.

Eddie was still dismayed. ‘You’re younger than me!’

‘Yes, I know – when Larry told me about you I thought it might be a bit weird, me being your stepmother. But if you want you can think of me as more like a stepsister!’

Eddie’s silence and fixed expression told her exactly how well her joke had been received. ‘So,’ said Larry after a moment, ‘Julie, why don’t you sort us out some drinks? I’ll show Nina and Eddie round the house.’ Julie gave her guests a hesitant smile, then clicked back down the hall.

Larry went to a flight of stairs. ‘Come on, we’ll do upstairs first.’ He started up them.

‘Half his age plus seven years,’ Eddie muttered to Nina as they followed.

‘What?’

‘That’s the rule, remember? For how old a woman has to be to stop the bloke from being a creepy old pervert.’

‘So?’

‘He’s sixty. You’re the mental arithmetic genius, work it out.’

Nina sighed. It was already obvious that the evening was not going to be a roaring success; the best result would simply be getting through it without a fistfight.

The house’s interior was impressive, expensive . . . and decidedly masculine. If there were any rooms where Julie had been given free rein to apply a feminine touch, Larry opted not to include them in the tour. Instead, he showed off those parts he considered most important: a well-equipped gym; a sauna; a home cinema with a floor-shaking sound system and practically a whole wall of DVDs and Blu-rays, Nina awarding him a few approving brownie points when she noticed that the collection included the complete works of Monty Python. Slightly to her surprise, a large attic was filled by a model railway. It wasn’t a hobby she would have expected of such an obvious Type A personality, but as Larry explained, ‘I’ve had model railways since I was a kid. That way, I know there’s at least one place where the trains run on time.’

‘Yeah, you always did like being in control, didn’t you?’ said Eddie. He tweaked a dial, and a train jerked into motion.

‘Do you mind?’ Larry snapped.

‘What? I’m not going to break it.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’ He flicked a master switch to turn off the power.

Eddie shook his head. ‘Christ, I crash a toy train once as a kid, and I’m banned for life.’

‘They’re not toys,’ his father said with irritation.

‘It’s really amazing,’ Nina cut in, hoping to forestall an argument. She examined one of the little buildings, a replica of an English country pub. ‘And it’s so detailed!’

‘Detail is everything,’ said Larry. ‘If you want to be successful, you need to cover every last detail, whether you’re doing something yourself or delegating. Like this.’ He swept a hand over the layout. ‘I don’t have the time to make everything myself, but I always make sure that when someone else works for me, they know exactly what I expect from them.’

‘You paid someone to make this for you?’ Eddie said scathingly. ‘Where’s the fun in that? You might as well hire someone to stand here and drive the trains.’

To Nina’s relief, a call came that dinner was almost ready, and they trooped downstairs. Drinks were served, then the meal began. With the addition of the chirpy Julie to the mix, the conversation became less tense. However, halfway through the main course of beef carpaccio with marinated salad, Nina realised she would have to be the designated driver as Eddie, keeping pace with his father, poured himself a third glass of wine. Not even having finished her first glass, she switched to water. ‘I’m no expert on the linguistic ins and outs of England,’ she said to Larry, ‘but I can tell you don’t have the same accent as Eddie. Are you not from Yorkshire originally?’

‘Oh, no,’ he replied. ‘I’m from Bucks.’ Nina gave him a blank look. ‘Buckinghamshire, in the Home Counties. The rich parts around London,’ he clarified. ‘I used to spend a lot of time travelling between the ports at Liverpool and Hull for work, and the M62, the motorway between them, was just being finished. So I picked somewhere to live that was right in the middle. Same reason I moved down here, actually. A lot of my work goes through Southampton, so it made sense to be near the port. Turned out well in both cases. I met Julie down here – she used to be my secretary – and met my first wife in Yorkshire.’

‘You mean Mum,’ Eddie rumbled.

‘What is your work?’ Nina asked quickly. ‘Eddie said it was something to do with shipping.’ His actual words had been ‘shipping, or some bollocks’, but she kept that to herself.

Larry gestured at a shelf. ‘Julie, there are some of my cards on there – can you get one for Nina?’ Julie stood and retrieved one, and handed it to Nina.

‘Thanks,’ Nina said. A stark, modern logo in deep blue stood out at the card’s top above the company name. ‘Chase International Logistics?’

‘That’s right,’ said Larry with a smug smile. ‘I left the old firm ten years ago and went into business for myself. And it’s worked out rather well.’

‘So what does international logistics entail?’ Not wanting to seem rude by discarding it, she slipped the card into her breast pocket.

‘Getting things from where they are to where they’re wanted as quickly as possible with the minimum of hassle. Including from officials. I go all over the world, getting to know the right people. A word in someone’s ear can mean the difference between a package being held up by red tape for a week or clearing customs in an hour.’

Eddie took another chug of wine. ‘And it’s all totally legal, obviously.’ His voice was full of sarcasm.

‘Everything’s above board, if that’s what you’re implying,’ said Larry, frowning.

‘Well, yeah. After that time you got investigated by Customs and Excise, I suppose you’d want to make sure all the paperwork’s in order.’

Nina and Julie exchanged awkward looks as Larry stabbed his fork into his last piece of beef. ‘That was just a random audit. They do hundreds of them every year.’ He put the meat in his mouth and chewed on it ferociously.

‘But they don’t normally come round to people’s houses and take all their files away, do they?’ It was Eddie’s turn to look smug.

Mouth full, Larry couldn’t reply, but from his scowl it was clear he was planning a retaliatory shot. ‘So, everyone finished?’ Julie said hurriedly. ‘Larry, love, can you help me put the plates in the dishwasher?’

Once they had gone, Nina put her head in her hands. ‘God, Eddie.’

‘What?’ he said, shrugging innocently. ‘Just being nostalgic.’

‘Can you be less aggressively nostalgic? Please?’

Dessert was served, baked peaches stuffed with mascarpone and almonds, both Eddie and Larry washing it down with more wine. Nina was grateful to Julie for steering the conversation away from anything that might spark another round of sniping between father and son. ‘It sounds like you have an amazing life,’ she said to the archaeologist. ‘One great big adventure!’

‘It’s not all adventure,’ Nina assured her. ‘I spend more time than I’d like in an office. But we’re doing some fieldwork at Glastonbury tomorrow, in King Arthur’s tomb.’

‘Wow. And archaeology’s how you met Eddie?’

‘Yes – he’d been hired as my bodyguard. He’s kept me safe from the bad guys since then.’ She smiled and put a hand on his arm.

‘That’s really romantic,’ said Julie, ignoring Larry’s faint but dismissive huff. ‘And exciting, too. Eddie, how many bad guys have you had to deal with?’

‘Oh, a fair few,’ said Eddie, for the first time that evening giving an answer without any snarky undertones. ‘But I used to be in the SAS, so I can handle myself.’ Julie was highly impressed by the revelation, deepening Larry’s irritation. ‘A punch in the face usually sorts ’em out.’

‘Well, that’s one thing you were always good at as a kid,’ said Larry loudly as he took another drink. ‘Hitting people, I mean. What was the name of that boy you used to bully? Peter something – Peter Clackett, that was it. I remember when his parents came round to complain about you beating him up.’

‘Larry . . . ’ Julie implored.

But he was on a roll. ‘Of course, it was the police who started coming round when you got older. Still,’ he continued, addressing Nina, ‘I’m glad he’s finally put his, ah, talent to constructive use.’

‘Well, personally, Larry,’ said Nina defensively, ‘I think Eddie’s a fantastic man, and I wouldn’t change a thing about him.’ That wasn’t entirely true, but she hoped it would divert the discussion down a less argumentative path. Though in truth she was startled to hear that her husband had been a bully as a child – and that he had made no attempt to deny it.

‘Thanks, love,’ said Eddie, to her relief sounding cheery rather than angry. He ate a piece of peach, following it with more wine, then said, ‘Mind you, I might have turned out better as a kid if I’d had a good role model. Not someone who was hardly ever there ’cause he was off giving backhanders to crooked customs men and shagging other women behind his wife’s back.’

Larry banged down his spoon. ‘Oh, God,’ Nina moaned under her breath.

‘But after I left home,’ Eddie went on, ‘the army knocked some sense into me, so I turned out okay in the end. You know, serving my country, saving lives . . . ’

‘Marrying terrorists,’ said Larry, turning to Julie. ‘Did you know his first wife was Sophia Blackwood – the woman who tried to blow up New York?’ Julie was too embarrassed to reply.

‘Still, I managed not to cheat on her,’ Eddie snapped. A sarcastic sneer. ‘So, what contributions to humanity have you been making for the last twenty years? Bit of this, bit of that, makin’ deals . . . playing with your toy trains.’

‘Maybe I should have been around more,’ Larry growled. ‘I would have knocked some respect into you.’

‘Oh, you would, would you?’ said Eddie, challenging. ‘Big man, hitting his kid, eh?’

‘I certainly wouldn’t have let you run riot like your mother did.’

Eddie jumped up, jolting the table and knocking over his wine glass as he jabbed a finger at his father. ‘Don’t you fucking dare criticise Mum! Not after what you did to her.’

Larry also sprang to his feet. ‘Don’t you swear at me in my own house!’

‘Why, what’re you gonna do? Spank me? Or maybe you’re going to knock some respect into me. Come on, give it a try!’

Both wives stood too, trying to calm their husbands. ‘Eddie, Eddie, come on,’ said Nina. ‘We should probably get moving, huh? It’s getting late.’

‘Suits me fine,’ said Eddie. ‘Thanks for dinner, Julie. We’ll see ourselves out.’ He stormed from the room.

Nina shot Larry a disgusted look- he had, after all, been just as responsible as Eddie for the evening’s unpleasant turn – before facing his wife. ‘I’m sorry, Julie.’

‘So am I,’ she replied, equally apologetic. ‘I hope the rest of your stay is . . . better.’

‘Me too. Bye.’ With a sigh, she followed Eddie, who had already donned his leather jacket and was waiting at the door. ‘What the hell was that?’ she hissed as she collected her own jacket. ‘You couldn’t stay civil for two hours?’

Eddie walked out. ‘What? He bloody started it.’

‘You were both as bad as each other,’ she said, catching up. ‘Yes, he was acting like an ass, but you didn’t have to do the same!’

‘I didn’t want to fucking come at all, remember? The whole thing’s your fault for dragging me here.’

‘Oh, right, blame me! That’s really goddamn mature, Eddie.’ They reached the car, Eddie heading for the driver’s side. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting in the car, what does it look like?’

‘You’re not driving, not after all that wine.’

He slapped the key on the roof with a clang. ‘Whatever, fucking fine. Maybe I’ll walk back instead.’

‘Don’t tempt me,’ said Nina, tight-lipped. She took the key and unlocked the Mondeo.

Eddie dropped heavily into the passenger seat and slammed his door. ‘Well, if you’re so fucking embarrassed to be seen with me, I’ll save you any social humiliation and not go to Glastonbury tomorrow. You can find your own bloody way there. I’ll spend the day with Nan, like I promised. At least I know there’s one member of my family who appreciates me.’

‘Fine. What-ever.’ Teeth clenched, Nina started the engine and, over-revving, powered down the drive.

4

Eddie departed the hotel the next morning without breakfast or even a word, leaving Nina in a bad mood. She was still mad at him – and Larry – for their sheer childishness.

Her outfit from the previous night was on a chair; she folded the skirt and blouse to return them to her suitcase. The creased business card dropped to the floor. She glowered at it, then found her wallet and slipped it inside. Amongst the phone numbers was Larry’s home; though she had no particular desire to talk to him, she might still want to speak to Julie, if only to apologise again.

But for now she had work to do. Though she had spoken to the trustees of Glastonbury Tor from New York, the hastiness of the arrangements meant she wanted to check that all was in order before setting out. She started making calls.

Half an hour later, everything was confirmed. Nina tied her hair back in a ponytail and was gathering her belongings when her phone rang. Eddie? No, Macy. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Nina!’ From the background noise, Macy was apparently in a car, and going at considerable speed.

‘Hey, Macy. Where are you?’

‘On the freeway. M3, I think it’s called. I’m on my way to you.’

‘Did you bring either of the statues?’

‘I’ve got both of them! Mr Penrose persuaded Dr Assad to let the Egyptian one go on vacation, and your friend at Interpol – Mr Jindal? He said yes right away about the other one. Are you still in this Bournemouth place?’

‘Yes, I’m at the hotel.’ Nina gave her the postcode.

‘Okay,’ Macy said after entering it into the satnav, ‘it says I’m seventy-five miles from you. Also says it’ll take an hour twenty-five to get there, but pshht! I can do better than that.’ The engine note rose.

‘There’s no rush, Macy,’ Nina told her. ‘They’re not expecting us there until lunchtime.’

‘No problem. You and Eddie can show me round England first.’

‘Eddie’s not coming today.’

‘No? Huh. Why not?’

‘Personal reasons,’ was the only answer Nina felt like giving. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘Where’s Nina today?’ asked Nan.

She and Eddie were on a clifftop road overlooking the sea, Bournemouth’s pier jutting into the English Channel to the west. He was pushing her along in a wheelchair, an oxygen cylinder on its back connected to her breath mask; though unhappy about the enforced helplessness of her situation, for now she had resigned herself to it. ‘She’s gone to Glastonbury, Nan,’ he told her. ‘Some archaeological thing.’

‘Oh, I see. Why haven’t you gone with her?’

He was still simmering from the previous night, but kept it to himself. ‘Because you wanted me to take you out for a walk,’ he said instead. ‘So here I am!’

‘But what if something happens to her?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know, but things always seem to happen to you two. Like the last time you were here, and the Imax got blown up.’ She pointed at a tower crane inshore of the pier, marking the site where a group of Russian mercenaries had come to a fiery end. ‘They had to demolish it, you know. Which was marvellous, it was a hideous building! But I do worry.’

‘Well, there’s nothing to worry about at the moment. Far as I know, we haven’t upset any cults, there aren’t any ancient civilisations somebody wants to keep secret and nobody’s trying to kill us.’

‘That’s as may be, but I can’t help it. And I’m sure Nina would feel better with you there.’ They continued along the road for a short while before Nan spoke again. ‘What are you going to do today if Nina’s not here, then?’

‘You make it sound like I can’t do anything without her permission.’

‘You know what I mean – you’re a couple, you usually do things together.’

He hadn’t actually thought any further ahead than what he was now doing. ‘I dunno. Maybe spend the afternoon with you and Holly and Lizzie.’

‘Holly’s gone out with her friends.’ She looked back at him with a knowing little smile. ‘But I’m sure you and Elizabeth will have lots to talk about.’

‘Yeah, right.’ His relationship with his older sister was brittle enough at the best of times, and since she would certainly have called their father for a report on the previous night, Eddie didn’t doubt that she would have plenty to say on the matter. ‘But I don’t want to just abandon you.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly! You don’t have to hang around all day with an old goose like me. There must be other people you can see while you’re here. What about your friend, the Scottish gentleman?’

‘Mac?’ Nan had met him on a couple of occasions, most recently a party to celebrate Eddie and Nina’s first wedding anniversary.

‘Yes, him. He was very charming. Where does he live?’

‘London.’

‘Well, that’s less than two hours away on the train. You should call him.’

Eddie considered it. ‘You know, I think I will.’

‘You see? Your old nan still knows what’s best. You should always find the time to catch up with your friends – you never know when you’ll see them next.’ She pointed again, this time to a scenic overlook. ‘Oh, Edward, can you take me over there? It’s one of my favourite spots.’

At the height of the summer holiday season the clifftop was thronged with tourists, but people were good-natured enough to clear a space for an old lady in a wheelchair. ‘Will you help me up?’ she asked Eddie.

‘You’re supposed to stay in the chair, Nan.’

‘I’m not a cripple, Edward. Come on, give me a hand.’ She pushed herself from the seat.

Reluctantly, Eddie helped her to her feet, aware how light and fragile she felt in contrast to the firm and busy figure from his childhood. It was evidently a struggle, as she took several heavy breaths and forced back a cough, but she managed to stand and lean against the fence. ‘Thank you. Oh, look at that! Isn’t it lovely?’

It was indeed quite a sight. The air was clear, providing a panoramic view along the coast to Poole Harbour and beyond. The sea glittered under the noon sun, the long beach dotted with hundreds of sunbathers. Seagulls drifted lazily overhead, gliding on the warm rising air. ‘Yeah, it is,’ Eddie agreed, the view lifting his mood.

Nan regarded it in silence for some time, taking the sun on her face, before eventually lowering herself back into the chair. Eddie helped her sit. She coughed again, harder, then cleared her throat. ‘I’m glad I got to see it again. Especially with you. I do like the sea. You know, I’ve told Elizabeth that when I go, that’s where I want my ashes to be scattered.’

Eddie didn’t like the new turn in the conversation at all. ‘You can see it again whenever you want, Nan. And I’ll be back to see it with you before too long, don’t you worry.’

‘Oh, I’m not worried about me, Edward. I’ve had a good run. But your old nan is . . . well, starting to fall apart.’ She tapped the oxygen mask. ‘I don’t want to hang around if I have to be tubed up in some hospital. I’d rather just fall asleep and never wake up.’

He had heard her say similar things before, but always jokily. This time, though, it was almost in resignation. ‘Don’t talk like that, Nan. You’ll be around for a long time yet.’

She smiled up at him. ‘You’re a good lad, Edward, thank you. But I’ve done everything I wanted. I’ve got grandchildren, I’ve got great-grandchildren, and about the only thing I still want is to see you and Nina give me another one.’

‘Not sure when that’ll be,’ said Eddie, ‘but if that’s what it takes to make sure you don’t go anywhere, then I’ll see what we can do.’

Another smile behind the mask. ‘That’s nice. But it’s your world now. Nobody should stay around past their time.’

Her words made Eddie’s throat tighten as though he was being choked. He looked away, following his grandmother’s gaze across the peaceful sea.

Nina didn’t need the satellite navigation system of Macy’s rented Range Rover Evoque to tell her how far they were from their destination. The tiered hump of Glastonbury Tor, the ruined tower of a medieval church atop the green hill, stood out for miles on the plain of farmland surrounding it. ‘There it is.’

‘Good,’ Macy replied. ‘I didn’t know driving in England would be so stressy.’ After being stuck behind a slow-moving horsebox for several miles, she had finally lost patience and blasted past it on a near-blind corner, to Nina’s armrest-clutching dismay.

‘Because of being on the wrong side?’

‘That, and these roads.’ She jabbed a manicured finger at the winding lane ahead. ‘I’ve used Scotch tape that’s wider! And what’s with all the twists and turns? Did the Brits lose straight line technology after the Romans left?’

Nina smiled. ‘Well, not much farther now. And I think you’ll find Glastonbury relaxing. I know I did.’

‘Didn’t you get chased and shot at?’

‘I meant apart from that!’

Before long, they arrived at the Tor. There had been changes since Nina’s previous visit; following her discovery of King Arthur’s tomb beneath the hill, a large part of the southeastern face was now fenced off, portable cabins acting as headquarters and labs for the ongoing dig.

They were met by the archaeological team’s leader, Dr William Barley. The elderly man wore thick round glasses and had a pipe clenched between his teeth. ‘Dr Wilde, welcome. A great honour to have you here.’

‘Thank you,’ Nina replied. ‘This is my assistant, Macy Sharif.’

‘Very good to meet you,’ said Barley. ‘Now, Dr Wilde, you said your visit was a potential security matter?’

‘That’s right,’ said Nina, removing the case containing the two statuettes from the Evoque, as well as a larger one which she presented to Macy, who stared at it uncomprehendingly before realising she was expected to carry it and grudgingly taking it. ‘The IHA came into possession of artefacts that may have a connection to Glastonbury.’

Barley sucked wetly on his pipe stem. ‘Not sure what to think about this cloak and dagger business you have at the IHA. I can understand keeping things quiet to stop treasure hunters, but it’s hard to imagine how anything found in an archaeological site could pose any risks to global security.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Nina. ‘Can we see the tomb?’

‘Of course. This way.’ Barley plodded to the tomb entrance, which was now covered by a wood and brick structure watched by CCTV cameras. He unlocked the door to reveal a narrow tunnel leading down into the heart of the Tor. Apart from the addition of a string of electric lights, it was just as Nina remembered finding it two years earlier, the Roman numerals inscribed into one of the stone supports marking the year of its construction: 1191 AD. The monks of Glastonbury Abbey had secretly excavated the tomb and moved the bodies of Arthur and Guinevere – and Arthur’s legendary sword, Excalibur – to a new resting place to prevent their abbey’s greatest treasures from being plundered.

She also remembered other things she had discovered within. ‘You’ve, ah, found all the death traps, I hope?’

Barley chortled. ‘No need to worry, Dr Wilde. Everything’s been made safe.’

‘Glad to hear it! Okay, if you’ll lead the way?’

He knocked out his pipe against the wall before picking his way down the steep tunnel, Nina and Macy following. At the bottom of the incline was the start of a literal maze, one of the tomb’s defences, but Barley led them briskly through it. Past the statue of the Lady of the Lake, down through what on Nina’s first visit had been a flooded labyrinth, up into a foul-smelling space where a great grinning relief of Merlin once marked an explosive end for the unwary, and finally into the vaulted chamber of the tomb itself. The side room containing the black stone coffins of Arthur and his queen was open.

Macy took it in with awe. ‘Wow, this is incredible. I only saw pictures before – didn’t think I’d get to see it for real.’

‘Working for the IHA has its perks,’ Nina joked. She became more serious as she examined the object between the coffins. It was a cube of granite, three feet to a side, with a narrow slot in the top from which Excalibur had once protruded – and a chunk sliced from one corner where she had inadvertently discovered that in the right hands, Arthur’s weapon was more than a mere sword.

‘So, what are these artefacts?’ Barley asked. Nina opened the case. The British scientist seemed underwhelmed by the figurines within. ‘I don’t recognise them.’

‘Nor do we – and that’s the problem. I’m hoping that bringing them here will prove . . . illuminating.’

Nina hadn’t planned on making a pun, but couldn’t resist. She touched one of the statuettes. As she had hoped, the tomb was still a confluence point for lines of earth energy – and whatever it was about her that had allowed Excalibur to slice effortlessly through solid stone now caused the figurine to light up with an eerie indigo glow.

‘Good God!’ cried Barley.

Macy’s response was much the same. ‘Whoa!’ she yelped, flinching back. ‘It’s not radioactive, is it?’

Nina lifted her finger from the statue, and the glow vanished. ‘Open the case, and we’ll find out.’

Macy was about to put the case on Arthur’s coffin when a stammered protest from Barley prompted her to switch to the granite block. She opened it, and Nina took out a piece of equipment. ‘Geiger counter,’ she explained. ‘Macy, you hold it while I touch the statue again.’

Macy held the counter at arm’s length, cringing as the figurine lit up. Nothing came from the machine except the intermittent crackles of normal background radiation. ‘I wish you’d checked that first, before maybe zapping us with gamma rays,’ she complained.

‘What causes that glow?’ Barley asked, stepping closer.

‘It’s a phenomenon called earth energy,’ said Nina, ‘but as for exactly how it works, I can’t tell you. Not because it’s classified – although it is – but because I genuinely don’t understand it myself. I’m not a physicist. All I know are its effects.’

‘Which are . . . ?’

‘Classified.’

Barley sighed. ‘I suspected as much.’

Nina placed the first statue on the block, then took the other from the case. It too reacted in the same way to her touch, filling the chamber with an unnatural light. But she noticed something as she put the second figure down beside the first: the effect was not uniform.

Macy saw it too. ‘It’s brighter on the side facing the other one – like it’s responding to it.’

Nina picked up the second statuette again and slowly moved it in a circle round the first. There was indeed a somewhat stronger band of light on one side of the figure, which changed position as the stone was moved, so that it always shone in the direction of the statue’s near-twin. ‘Like holding a magnet to a compass,’ Barley mused.

‘There’s a compass in the case,’ Nina said. ‘Macy, get it out; we’ll see if it’s some kind of magnetic effect.’

It wasn’t, the needle unmoving. Nina picked up both statues experimentally, wondering if each would show a bright band when they were aglow. They did, pointing towards each other no matter the figures’ relative positions. Whatever caused the earth energy effect, whoever made the two statuettes had found a practical use for it – if somebody who could utilise the phenomenon had one statue in their possession, they could use it to find the other.

But there was something else – another, barely discernible line of increased illumination on each. Whatever this pointed towards, it was unmoving. Still holding the statues, she walked back and forth across the chamber in the hope of spotting a parallax effect. None was evident. The cause was apparently some distance away.

‘What if it’s the third statue?’ Macy suggested.

‘There’s another one?’ Barley asked.

‘Yes – they fit together.’ Nina returned to the block and slotted the statues together, arms interlocking. This time, there was a change: the two lines merged into one, much brighter, still pointing in the direction of the fainter bands she had seen moments before.

She turned the linked figures. The glow remained stationary, the band of light rippling over the crude carved features as she rotated them. It was a pointer. One that led to the missing third of the triptych.

But what was the statues’ purpose, and who had created them?

Nina let go, the illumination instantly vanishing. Macy tapped at the figurines, but nothing happened. Barley warily followed suit, with the same lack of result. ‘It’s only you, Dr Wilde,’ he said.

‘Must be my electrifying personality.’ Silence. ‘Oh come on, that was funny.’

‘Mm,’ said Macy, not quite a ringing endorsement. ‘Touch it again – I want to check something.’ Nina brought her hand back to the statues and the strange light returned. Macy held the compass above the glowing figures, taking a bearing. ‘So it’s pointing . . . just about exactly southwest. If there really is a third statue, it’s somewhere that way.’

‘Southwest . . . ’ Nina echoed. She turned to Barley. ‘Do you have a globe?’

The Tor’s Arthurian archaeological team did not in fact have a globe of the world to hand, but they had the next best thing; a virtual equivalent on Barley’s computer. ‘Are you sure you want to rule out any potential sites in the UK?’ he asked in response to Nina’s request for him to zoom out. ‘Dartmoor alone has over eight hundred Neolithic and Bronze Age sites, and that’s southwest of here.’

‘I have a hunch that we’re looking for something more far-flung,’ she said. ‘The first statue was found on another continent - in a chamber that was sealed centuries before the start of the European Bronze Age.’

The image on the screen pulled back more and more, until the Earth’s curvature appeared at the edges of the screen. Nina followed a line running diagonally down and to the left from Glastonbury, at the map’s centre. Though it passed close to the Azores, out in the Atlantic, it didn’t touch land until it reached South America, visible only as a line of green along the very edge of the visible hemisphere. ‘Can you switch it to a cartographic view?’

Barley fussed with the controls. The image changed, continents distorting as they morphed from a three-dimensional representation to a flat one. The line now made landfall near the great delta of the Orinoco river, on the continent’s northern coast. ‘Venezuela?’ said Macy.

‘And Colombia. And Brazil, and Peru,’ Nina added, following the line southwest through more countries until it reached the Pacific.

‘Rather a lot of ground to cover,’ said Barley. ‘And I think you’ll find Dartmoor a lot easier to reach!’

‘The best sites are always in the worst places . . . ’ She regarded the map. South America: home to numerous ancient civilisations. Could one have possessed the third statue? It was possible. But which – and why?

She thanked Barley, gently reminding him of the need for discretion, and headed back to the Range Rover with Macy. ‘So what now?’ Macy asked.

‘I don’t know. Like Dr Barley said, there’s a lot of ground to cover. And we don’t have a distance, only a direction.’

There was one thing she was sure of, though. Ancient artefacts that could conduct earth energy definitely fell within the IHA’s remit. If there was a third statue somewhere in South America, it was up to her to find it.

Before anyone else did.

Eddie put a pint of beer and a whisky on the table. ‘There you go.’

‘Thanks,’ said Mac, leaning forward to pick up his glass. His left leg creaked faintly, metal and plastic rather than flesh and bone; he had lost the limb from the knee down in Afghanistan. He took a sip of whisky, then looked round the sunlit beer garden. ‘Nice afternoon for a trip to the seaside. I’m glad you called – it was looking to be a rather boring day otherwise.’

‘Any excuse to get out of work, right?’ said Eddie, grinning.

‘Hmph. I wish. The jobs from Vauxhall Cross seem to be drying up of late.’

Vauxhall Cross in London was the location of the headquarters of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. Since his retirement from the military, Mac had on occasion worked for the agency as what was euphemistically described as a ‘consultant’, even though some of his operations had been very hands-on. ‘Really?’ said Eddie. ‘Alderley not appreciating you, is he? Miserable sod. After everything you’ve done for him . . . ’

Mac shook his head. ‘Peter’s not the problem. It’s more that everything I’ve got to offer – contacts, local knowledge, intel . . . it’s all getting a bit out of date. The whole world’s moving on, Eddie, and when you’re not at the centre of things you start to get left behind, unfortunately.’ A small sigh, then his expression changed to one of curiosity. ‘And speaking of being left behind, you seem to have been abandoned by your other half. Where’s Nina today?’

‘Glastonbury. Work stuff.’

‘And you’re not with her?’ Eddie’s lack of an immediate response told his friend volumes. ‘Things all right with the two of you?’

‘Just having a rough patch,’ the Yorkshireman admitted. ‘You know what it’s like. Everything seems to end up in an argument. And we had a pretty big one last night.’

‘About what?’

‘My dad. We had dinner with him and his wife, and . . . it could’ve gone better.’

‘You actually met him?’ Mac was surprised. ‘A long time since that last happened.’

‘Twenty-odd years, yeah. Lizzie basically tricked me into it. I would’ve told him to fuck off when he invited us to dinner, but Nina insisted that we go. And that turned out fucking brilliantly. He hasn’t changed – he’s still an arsehole.’

‘Hrmm.’

Eddie eyed the older man. ‘Hrmm what?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Bollocks, nothing. That wasn’t a “that’s interesting” hrmm or an “I need to think about this” hrmm – that was a “you’re being an idiot but it’s not my place to comment” hrmm. What?’

‘Well, since you ask,’ said Mac, sitting up with a faint smile, ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot—’

‘Cheers, always good to know.’

‘—but I know you well enough to imagine that . . . well, perhaps he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t changed.’

‘You saying I’m an arsehole?’

The smile reappeared. ‘Never crossed my mind,’ said Mac, before his face became more serious. ‘But he made the first move – he was the one who put out his hand.’

‘So?’

‘So he was trying to have some sort of reconciliation, at least. Apparently it didn’t go well, but still, he made the effort.’

‘Doesn’t mean that I should’ve been all fawning and grateful.’

‘I’m not saying that. I know there are some rather large issues between the two of you. But it could be worth trying to deal with them while you have the chance.’

The older man’s tone made Eddie suspect there was more behind his words than he was saying. ‘Sounds like something that’s been on your mind.’

A silence, then: ‘It has,’ Mac admitted. ‘I got in touch with Angela recently.’

‘After so long? You’ve been divorced for, what, seven years?’

‘Eight. But we met up a couple of months ago. It went rather well, actually.’

‘Are you thinking about getting back together?’ asked Eddie in surprise.

‘No, nothing like that – it’s been too long, too much water under the bridge. But it was . . . nice. It reminded me how much we had in common. And in all honesty, the older I get, the more I’ve realised how easy it is to lose contact with people. You can’t rely on them just being there any more – you have to make an effort. It might be hard, but it can be worth it.’

‘And you reckon I should make an effort with my dad?’

Mac took another drink. ‘Just a thought.’

‘It might get Nina off my back, I suppose.’ Eddie’s phone rang; he recognised the ringtone. ‘Speak of the devil . . .’ He answered it. ‘Hey, love. Where are you?’

‘Just leaving Glastonbury with Macy,’ said Nina. ‘Heading back to Bournemouth.’

‘Did you find anything interesting?’

‘You could say that.’ Enthusiasm was clear in her voice. ‘We need to get back to New York. I think we’re going to be busy.’

5

New York City

‘You know, if these things react to earth energy,’ said Eddie, peering at the statuettes inside their display case in Nina’s office, ‘maybe we should ask DARPA where to look. They know how to find the stuff, after all.’

‘I don’t think they’d be too happy to hear from us,’ Nina replied sarcastically, looking up from her laptop. ‘Since we blew up their top-secret billion-dollar ship.’

‘All right, Christ, just a suggestion,’ Eddie snapped back. The bad feelings left over from the disastrous dinner had faded, but things were still prickly. ‘How about President Cole, then? He owes us a favour – we saved his life. And a whole bunch of other world leaders too. Come to think of it, the Russian president was one of ’em. Ask him if we can go back to Grozevny. We can get a triangulation from there.’

‘Oh yeah, great idea. Remember the nuclear submarine that sank there? Still kind of a sore point with the Russians.’

‘Hey, it wasn’t our fault it sank. Well, not entirely . . . ’

‘Besides,’ she said, going to a large map of the world on one wall, ‘even if we got another result from Grozevny, I don’t think it would help much.’ A red thread had been strung from a pin placed over Glastonbury, angling southwest across the map to South America. ‘We got the best bearing we could, but it was still only an approximation. And Grozevny,’ she tapped the map on the northern coast of Russia, ‘isn’t that far off the same bearing. Even if we got a triangulation from there, it still wouldn’t be accurate enough. The search area would cover hundreds of square miles.’

‘Better than half a continent.’

‘I know, but . . . ’ She sighed. ‘We need a break, more information.’

The phone rang. Nina put the call on speaker; it was Lola. ‘Ankit Jindal from Interpol is here to see you. He says it’s about the statues.’

Eddie raised his eyebrows. ‘That was quick.’

‘Send him in!’ Nina said.

‘We need a million dollars, an’ all,’ said Eddie with a hopeful glance at the phone. It remained silent. ‘Tchah! Worth a try.’

A knock, and Ankit Jindal entered. The handsome Indian’s glossy black hair had developed into even more of a quiff since they had last seen him. ‘Hello,’ he said, beaming.

They shook hands. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Kit,’ said Nina. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were coming to New York?’

‘I could have done, but what would be the fun in that? Besides, considering why I’m here, I thought it would be better to discuss it face to face.’

‘So why are you here?’ Eddie asked.

Kit indicated the display case. ‘Your little purple friends. Mr Penrose sent me a copy of your report about what you discovered in England.’

‘He did?’ Nina was slightly surprised. Certainly, it was part of Penrose’s job to keep other international bodies like Interpol informed of the UN’s activities, but he didn’t normally do so with such promptness. ‘What’s Interpol’s interest?’

Kit opened his briefcase, taking out several files. ‘After that business with the Khoils, the Cultural Property Crime Unit tried to track down the owners of the unidentified items found in their vault. Most of them we eventually located, but a few we couldn’t find.’ He opened a file. ‘But we had a breakthrough. Most of the Khoils’ computer records had been wiped or encrypted, but our experts managed to recover a shipping manifest.’

He handed Nina a copy of a document. Much of it was gibberish to her, the computerised tracking of a container from port to port, but the final destination – Nuuk in Greenland, the country where the Indian billionaires had been preparing to sit out a global collapse – was clear enough. ‘It doesn’t specifically name the container’s contents, although that’s not surprising if it was filled with stolen art treasures. But the shipping agent is based in Singapore.’

She found a name at the top of the page. ‘Stamford West?’

‘Sounds like a Tube station,’ said Eddie.

‘Interpol has been watching Mr West for some time,’ Kit told them. ‘He’s been linked to the smuggling of artworks and antiquities from several countries, although there has never been enough evidence against him to make a case.’

‘But you’re sure he was involved with the Khoils?’ said Nina. Kit nodded. ‘Which might mean that he knows where the second statue came from originally.’

‘He might. But that’s only part of the reason I came here.’ The Indian opened another file. ‘There is also evidence – only circumstantial, unfortunately – linking him to another black market operation. Look at these.’ He laid several glossy photographs on the desk.

Nina picked one up. ‘Oh, this is beautiful,’ she said, fascinated. The image was of a small statue of a broad-faced man sitting cross-legged, eyes closed as if in meditation. The figure gleamed under the photographer’s lights; it was made of pure gold. ‘Inca?’

‘Yes.’ He indicated the other photos, which showed similarly spectacular pieces. ‘Our experts confirmed they’re genuine, dating from no later than the sixteenth century.’

‘And these were found on the black market?’

‘No, in a drugs raid on a mansion in Mexico a few weeks ago. The man had a taste for ancient art. But his records contained a paper trail that led back to their illegal source.’

‘Peru?’

Kit shook his head. ‘Venezuela.’

‘What?’ Nina shook her head. ‘That doesn’t make sense – the Inca empire never extended that far from the Andes. Are you sure they weren’t just smuggled through Venezuela?’

‘After these were recovered, we checked with our informants to find out if any other Inca artefacts had come on to the black market. They had, and apparently some were being sold for very large sums, tens of millions of dollars. We didn’t find out who was selling them or exactly where they were coming from, but there are two things we are certain about.’

‘Which are?’ Eddie asked.

‘They are definitely coming from somewhere in Venezuela, most likely the south of the country. And they are all completely unknown artefacts. Nobody has ever seen them before.’

The implication of that struck Nina almost physically. ‘Unknown?’ she echoed. ‘But if all these pieces are genuine Inca artefacts, that would mean . . . there’s an undiscovered Inca settlement somewhere in Venezuela!’

‘Somebody must’ve discovered it,’ Eddie pointed out, nodding at the photos.

She wasn’t listening. ‘That would be an enormous change to what we thought we knew about the Inca empire. They made incursions into the Amazon jungle, but never settled there – they were a mountain people.’ She went to the wall map, holding her thumb and forefinger apart above the scale before moving her hand in steps across the map. ‘Venezuela is a good nine hundred miles from the empire’s outer reaches. Any Inca outpost that far away would be . . . ’ Her eyes widened. ‘Legendary. No, it couldn’t be!’

‘What couldn’t be?’ Eddie demanded.

‘The Spanish conquered Peru in the 1530s,’ she explained excitedly. ‘Francisco Pizarro, the leader of the Conquistadors, captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa, who tried to make a deal – in return for his freedom, he’d give Pizarro enough gold to fill his cell from floor to ceiling. Pizarro agreed, after demanding that he also get enough silver to fill the neighbouring cell. Atahualpa told him it would take two months to collect the gold and silver from throughout the empire, so Pizarro sent messengers to issue his demands, while keeping Atahualpa as a hostage.’

‘How big was the room?’ asked Kit.

‘I can’t remember exactly, but quite large. So enough gold to fill it would be worth millions of dollars in today’s money – maybe even billions.’

Eddie whistled appreciatively. ‘Did this Pizarro get the gold?’

‘I don’t know if anyone ever literally tried to fill the room with treasure, but Pizarro certainly became extremely rich. Although that didn’t stop him from putting Atahualpa up before a kangaroo court, forcing him to convert to Christianity, and then executing him.’

‘Ungrateful git!’

‘Yeah, the Conquistadors weren’t exactly shining beacons of integrity. But the thing was, when Pizarro took control of Cuzco, the capital, the Spanish realised there was much less gold there than they’d expected from previous expeditions. They melted down everything they could get their hands on, tens of tons of it – but they thought they were going to find hundreds of tons. And it didn’t take long before they started thinking that Atahualpa’s message hadn’t only been to send gold for his ransom, but also to warn his people to hide as much treasure as they could from the Spanish.’

‘This treasure,’ said Kit, ‘it might have been hidden in Venezuela?’

Nina looked at the map again. ‘Nobody knows. But there’s a legend of a hidden city where the Incas kept their greatest treasures. It’s called—’

‘El Dorado!’ Eddie cut in.

‘No – you’ve fallen into the same trap as the Spanish,’ she said. ‘That really is a myth, or rather a misinterpretation. The Chibcha Indians in Colombia had a ritual where they covered their king in gold dust and he went out into their sacred lake to wash himself clean. The Spanish, who only heard about it second-hand, thought El Dorado meant a golden city, not a golden man.’

‘Huh. And I thought I’d actually learned something from cartoons as a kid!’

‘Hey, I loved that show too – it was one of the few cartoons my parents didn’t mind me watching. Even if it was just so they could point out all the historical inaccuracies . . . Anyway, the real legendary city, if that’s not an oxymoron, was called Paititi. The story was that it was somewhere in the jungle, but since we’re talking about the Amazon rainforest, that doesn’t really narrow things down.’

Eddie shrugged. ‘So much for that, then.’

‘Ah,’ said Nina with a knowing smile, ‘but there’s more to it. About sixty years after Atahualpa’s execution, Sir Walter Raleigh went to South America in search of El Dorado, which he thought was somewhere along the Orinoco river.’ She indicated the river on the map; the red thread crossed it inland of its massive delta – and again much further to the southwest, along the border between Venezuela and Colombia. ‘He was exploring there because of the story of a Spanish sailor who was set adrift on the river by his men. He claimed that he was rescued by an Indian tribe, the Manoans, who took him to a city deep in the jungle . . . where he met a man who said he was the last heir of the Inca empire.’

‘Did Raleigh find the city?’ Kit asked.

‘No, he never did. He met the Manoans, though. They were traders, who covered hundreds of miles of rivers and could easily have been in regular contact with the Incas.’

‘And maybe told them a good place to hide a city?’ Eddie wondered. ‘Even helped them shift the gold?’

‘Maybe. But Paititi could well have been the city Raleigh was searching for. The timescale fits with the fall of the empire.’ She turned to Kit, thoughtful. ‘So, there’s a possible connection between the Khoils’ statue and the Inca artefacts on the black market – this guy West.’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘The reason I came here is because in your report you said a third statue may be somewhere in South America. Perhaps the second was there too – Stamford West would have been able to smuggle it out of the country without it being found by customs agents.’

Nina pursed her lips. ‘I’m not sure about that. There’s been nothing to suggest that the second statue came from there.’

‘Well, it is just a theory,’ Kit said with a shrug. ‘But the third statue could be in southern Venezuela, and these Inca treasures are coming from southern Venezuela. Perhaps the same place. I think – Interpol thinks – it is worth investigating. Mr West may have some answers.’

‘He’s in Singapore, you said?’ Eddie asked. ‘I’ve got a friend in the Singapore police; she’ll be able to help us out when we go and see this bloke.’

‘Wait, “we”?’ said Nina. ‘We are not going anywhere – there’s too much to do here.’

Eddie waved dismissively at the piles of books and papers on her desk. ‘That’s not exactly my kind of reading. If I go to Singapore with Kit, at least I’ll be doing what I’m good at.’

Kit looked between them, noting Nina’s glare at her husband. ‘A personal connection with the Singapore police could be very useful.’ The glare turned on him. ‘But I will, er . . . let you both decide what you want to do. I’ll be in New York until tomorrow, so call me. Good to see you again.’ He gathered up his files and left the office.

Nina rounded on Eddie. ‘So you’re going to Singapore, huh?’

‘Oh, so it’s all right for you to jet off round the world whenever you feel like you need a break, but not me?’

‘You think you need a break?’

‘I didn’t mean it in a Ross and Rachel sense,’ Eddie said irritably. ‘You heard Kit. I can help him out.’

‘But you still meant it in an “I don’t want to deal with my issues, so I’m going to run off to the other side of the world” sense, right?’

‘What bloody issues?’ Eddie protested. ‘You got a bit embarrassed in front of two people, neither of who you’re ever going to see again—’

‘So you’ve decided that, have you?’

‘Why, do you want to see them again?’

‘They’re my family now, so maybe I might.’

‘Oh, might you? Just don’t expect me to go with you. Anyway, the only issue is that you’ve blown everything totally out of proportion.’

‘Oh, for—’ Nina dropped heavily into her chair. ‘I sometimes wonder why I married you. Fine, okay, go to Singapore. Try not to get arrested for chewing gum.’

Eddie gave her a sarcastic look. ‘I’ll go and pack.’ He departed, leaving Nina to knead her forehead in frustration.

Once outside the UN building, Kit made a phone call. ‘It’s Jindal. I’ve just left the IHA.’

‘And?’ said a terse male voice.

‘It took a while to convince Dr Wilde that the Venezuelan connection is our best lead to the third statue, but she seems to have accepted it. And Eddie has offered to help with West.’

‘Eddie?’

‘Mr Chase.’

‘Don’t get too involved with these people, Jindal,’ came the disapproving response. ‘Once the Group has all three statues we will still need Dr Wilde, but Chase is irrelevant. Just make sure you maintain your cover at Interpol until we have them.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll report again when I’ve found out if West has the information we need.’

A sound of confirmation from the other end of the line, then the abrupt click of disconnection without a further word. Not that Kit had expected anything more. He pocketed the phone and walked away into New York.

6

Singapore

The port of Singapore was one of the busiest in the world, its sprawling docks occupying several square miles of the island state’s limited land. Tens of thousands of shipping containers were stacked throughout the great concrete expanse, huge long-legged gantry cranes trundling back and forth from the moored globetrotting megaships in an intricate computer-directed ballet, gripping the steel boxes in their cable-mounted ‘spreader’ mechanisms.

On the port’s fringes, the walls of containers gave way to warehouses and offices. One in particular was the subject of Eddie’s attention as he waited with Kit and several officers from Singapore’s police and customs forces, sheltered from the rain beneath an awning. Across a wide road leading deeper into the metal maze was a two-storey cabin with a sign reading S Q West Import-Export, the upper floor’s windows illuminated behind Venetian blinds. ‘He’s working late,’ he said, looking at his watch. It was after nine p.m.

‘Many nights, Mr West doesn’t leave until almost midnight - and some nights he doesn’t leave at all,’ said Go Ayu. The Singapore Police Force staff sergeant was in her early thirties, of mixed Japanese and Thai descent, prim and formal in her dark blue uniform despite the humidity and the rain.

‘Can’t have much of a social life, then.’

‘He has enough to keep good friends with some of Singapore’s most important people. He is a very well-connected man.’

‘Connected enough to keep him out of trouble?’ Kit asked.

‘Yes,’ said Rosman Jefri, one of the customs agents. ‘Three years ago, Mr West was suspected of involvement in smuggling. His office and home were raided, but nothing was found – and he sued the government. Not only did he win, but the officer in charge was demoted.’

‘But now Interpol is involved, it will be harder for West to get his friends to apply pressure,’ said Ayu. ‘And it gives us another advantage. We have thought about trying to entrap him by asking him to transport an illegal cargo, but he is a clever man and will spot undercover agents.’

Eddie cocked his head, puzzled. ‘Wouldn’t that get chucked right out of court?’

‘Entrapment is legal here,’ Kit explained. ‘So if a stranger asks if you want to buy drugs . . . don’t.’

‘Good job I forgot my crack pipe. So, if we use someone from outside Singapore, you reckon that’ll make West more likely to do something dodgy?’

Rosman nodded. ‘If he agrees to an illegal act, that gives us the pretext we need to arrest him and seize his records.’

‘Before he can destroy them, we hope,’ added Ayu.

‘I think we can make sure of that,’ said Eddie.

‘You keep saying “we”, Eddie,’ objected Kit. ‘I will be going to see West – alone. I appreciate your working with Sergeant Go to move everything along, but you’re a civilian, not a police officer. This is up to me now.’

‘What, with that cover story you came up with? It’s too obvious – he’ll be suspicious right from the off.’ He rubbed the lapel of Kit’s pale blue suit jacket; it was obvious from its fit alone that it was not an expensively tailored garment. ‘No offence, but you’re dressed like a cop.’

Kit looked offended. ‘Then give me your jacket. No policeman I know would wear anything like that!’

‘Ooh, listen to Derek bloody Zoolander ’ere!’ said Eddie, pretending to be outraged. ‘All right, swap.’ He took off his leather jacket and traded it for Kit’s. ‘Still think it’s a bad idea for you to go in on your own, though.’ He turned to Ayu. ‘Does West have any history of violence?’

‘Not Mr West himself,’ she said. ‘But he employs security guards . . . and some of them have violent backgrounds.’

Eddie looked at the cabin. Figures moved behind the slats; West had company. ‘So, Kit, your plan is to go alone into the office of a dodgy bloke with nasty bodyguards and try to entrap him. Yeah, that’s sensible.’

‘We are right outside,’ Rosman pointed out.

‘Not close enough if things turn bad in a hurry – and you can’t see much through those blinds. Ayu, he needs support, and you know it. Let me go as well – if he’s the client, I can be his bodyguard.’

‘Eddie, you are not going with me,’ insisted Kit.

He didn’t listen. ‘Come on, Ayu. It’s your turf, not Interpol’s.’ With meaning, he added: ‘A favour for a favour.’

Ayu was conflicted, her eyes flicking between Eddie and Kit. ‘It . . . would make sense for Mr Jindal to have backup,’ she finally said. ‘And since Mr West would spot any of our own men . . . ’

‘There we go,’ said Eddie, grinning at Kit. ‘I’ll watch your back.’

The Indian was displeased, but grudgingly nodded. ‘Okay. But Eddie, leave all the talking to me, yes? Just stand behind me and look menacing.’

Another grin. ‘I think I can manage that.’

Five minutes later, having tested the tiny microphone concealed under Kit’s clothing, the two men set off for the cabin, shielded from the rain beneath umbrellas. ‘I still think this is a mistake,’ Kit grumbled. ‘How did you get Ayu to agree? Why does she owe you a favour?’

‘I helped her out of a tight spot about six years back,’ said Eddie. ‘She went after some drug dealers without backup. Not a smart move.’

‘Well, no. They would have been desperate – Singapore has the death penalty for drug smuggling.’

‘Turned out to be redundant for this lot after I finished with’em.’ They crossed the road. ‘Still not sure about your cover story, though. It’s all a bit too convenient, your supposed mutual friend just happening to be unavailable right now because he got arrested.’

‘It’s the best we have. But it’s time for you to be quiet. I’m sure even you can manage that for five minutes.’

‘Cheeky bugger,’ said Eddie as Kit pushed the buzzer.

A light came on behind the door, which opened to reveal a thick-necked Malay man. He regarded them suspiciously. ‘Yeah? What you want?’

Kit opened his mouth to speak, but Eddie beat him to it. ‘Good evening!’ he boomed, doing his best Roger Moore impression. ‘I’m here to see Mr West.’ The man stared at him; he continued irritably, ‘Come on, it’s a bloody monsoon out here. Let us in!’

The man frowned. ‘Who are you?’

‘Smythe’s the name, James St John Smythe. Now chop-chop, I’ve come a long way. There’s a lot of money at stake, so don’t keep me waiting.’

The mention of money did the trick, and the man waved them inside. ‘Your name again? Mr . . . Smith?’

‘Smythe,’ proclaimed Eddie. ‘With a y and an e. Now, where is he?’ A flight of stairs led to the top floor. ‘Up there? Marvellous. Lead on, there’s a good chap.’

The man ascended the stairs, gesturing for them to follow. ‘What are you doing?’ Kit hissed through his teeth.

‘I told you, you’re too obviously a cop,’ Eddie whispered back. ‘But he’ll never suspect a posh Englishman.’

‘Wait – that was meant to be posh?’ said Kit in disbelief.

‘Why, what did you think it sounded like?’

‘Like you had something stuck up your nose!’

Eddie huffed as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘What do you know? Anyway, we’re here.’ The man opened a door. ‘Thank you,’ he said, reverting to his affected accent and selfconsciously trying not to sound too nasal.

Tinny jazz music from a CD player reached them as they entered the office. Racks of floor-to-ceiling shelving containing hundreds of box files ran along the rear wall. Another Malay man, even more hulking than the first, sat at a desk piled with documents. He looked up suspiciously.

The room’s far end was incongruously homely, a hefty antique desk of lacquered teak positioned almost like a barricade to cut its occupier off from the rest of the workspace. As well as a pair of telephones and several trays of papers, the desk was home to not one but two computers: a modern black and chrome laptop and, less impressively, an extremely outdated PC, its beige casing discoloured with nicotine. A faded picture of what Eddie assumed was Singapore some decades ago hung on the wall, an only slightly less old portrait of the Queen of England beside another door.

The man behind the desk was obese, a triple chin cupping a sun-reddened face. Despite the whirring desk fan fluttering the strands of his comb-over, he was glistening with sweat, in large part because he was wearing a three-piece tweed suit and a cravat. Eddie guessed him to be in his early sixties. His underling spoke in Malay, getting a fluent reply in the same language, then the fat man switched to English to address the new arrivals. ‘And what can I do for you gentlemen?’ He too had a plummy accent, but unlike Eddie’s attempt it sounded genuine. ‘I don’t often take meetings after normal business hours, but since the weather is so ghastly it would be rude to turn you away.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Eddie replied. ‘My name is Smythe, James St John Smythe. This is my associate, Mr Jindal.’

‘Stamford West. Please, sit.’

‘Thank you.’ Eddie took a place on a folding chair facing West, Kit beside him. The man who had shown them in, he noticed in his peripheral vision, remained standing with his arms folded, one hand slipped slightly inside his jacket to give him easy access to whatever weapon was concealed there. ‘Now, I know these are unusual circumstances, but I wish to engage your business.’

‘I see.’ West’s eyes were piggy, but also sharp and intelligent, already suspicious. ‘And how did you come to hear about me?’

‘We have a mutual friend, Kazim bin Shukri.’

‘Ah. And how is old Kazim?’

‘Having a spot of bother with the customs folk in South Africa, poor chap.’

‘Inconvenient,’ said West, the first syllable barely audible.

Eddie didn’t rise to the bait, pretending not to have noticed the vague accusation. ‘For me, definitely – he owed me ten thousand dollars at backgammon.’

‘Oh, another player?’ said West. ‘I do enjoy a match, although Kazim is too good for my liking. Where did you play?’

Bin Shukri’s regular gambling haunt was an item that had come up during Kit’s cover briefing . . . and its name had slipped Eddie’s mind. ‘That little place in Macao,’ he said, remembering one scrap of information and struggling to recall the rest. He could tell that Kit was desperate to mouth the name, but with West watching them both intently the prompt would be spotted instantly. ‘Some flower, what’s its name? The, ah, the Red Lotus, that’s the one. Nice place. Good martinis.’

He had no idea if the Red Lotus even had a bar, but West appeared satisfied – for the moment. ‘You had better luck than I did playing against him there, Mr Smythe. Now, what’s this business of yours?’

Again, a cover story had been worked out, but to Eddie’s mind it was too contrived for West to accept. Instead, he took something he had heard about from Nina as a starting point . . . with his own embellishments. ‘Well, old chap, I’m sure you’ve heard about the archaeological dig the Chinese have been doing at the tomb of the First Emperor, at Xi’an.’

‘Hard not to in these parts,’ said West, with a faint chuckle that set his chins rippling.

‘Quite so. They’ve been picking at the tomb for a while to excavate the outer chambers – they’re afraid to go too deep inside because they think it’s cursed, can you believe it? Anyway, they’ve brought out various artefacts, all of which are obviously extremely valuable. I have, shall we say, come into ownership of one of them.’

The corpulent man appeared surprised. ‘I wasn’t aware that the Chinese government was selling them.’

Eddie smiled. ‘Nor are they. One of the archaeologists had built up quite a gambling debt in Macao.’

‘Interesting. What is the artefact?’

‘A jade pagoda.’ He held one hand above the other, eighteen inches apart. ‘About yea high. Quite exquisite. Problem is, I need to get it out of China. They’re rather keen to recover it.’

‘I can imagine.’ West leaned back in his chair. ‘And you think I can somehow help you with this?’

‘You came highly recommended as someone who can transport goods . . . while avoiding official checks.’

‘I would point out that smuggling is illegal.’

‘I’m aware of that. But can you help anyway?’

A long silence. Kit shifted in his seat, the intense interest of a cop staring down a suspect plain on his face. Eddie pretended to stretch, nudging him to break his concentration. ‘I obviously can’t agree to be part of anything illegal,’ said West at last. ‘And for all I know, you might be working for the Singapore police, trying to entrap me.’

Kit tensed again, but Eddie held out his arms with an expansive gesture. ‘Oh, come now. Do I really sound Singaporean?’

‘I’m not sure what you sound like, Mr Smythe.’ Now it was Eddie’s turn to stiffen. Had West realised the deception – or had he known all along and simply been toying with them? ‘But . . . I must admit, your story is unlikely enough to be true. No policeman I’ve ever met had that vivid an imagination.’

‘They are a block-headed bunch, aren’t they?’ Eddie said. Kit laughed flatly.

West leaned forward and worked his laptop. ‘This artefact of yours, where is it now?’

‘Hong Kong.’

‘And where are you planning to take it?’ He was still being slippery, Eddie realised; not saying anything that could be taken as agreement to participate.

‘England.’

‘A tad vague. Where in England?’

‘Near Tenterden, in Kent. Blackwood Hall, my estate.’ It had actually been the estate of Sophia’s father, where Eddie received an extremely chilly welcome the one and only time he was invited there in the company of his first wife.

West was impressed. ‘Really? Did you know Lord Blackwood?’ he asked as he continued tapping at the keyboard.

‘Only slightly. Bought the estate from his, er, estate after he died. Got it for a song – he was massively in debt, don’t you know.’

‘So I heard. I assume you want the item shipped as soon as possible.’

‘The sooner the better.’

West nodded, then swivelled his bulk round to face the second, older computer. He pushed a button, and with a bleep and a shrill whine of fans it started up. Eddie could just about see the screen from where he was sitting: green text on a black background. He also noticed that a modern memory card reader had been connected via a black box to one of its rear ports. ‘Rather an old machine,’ said Eddie. He nodded towards the laptop. ‘Why not use that one?’

‘For security. Older hardware has its advantages,’ said West. He bent down with a grunt to collect something out of sight behind the desk. ‘For one, it has no Internet connection, so it’s immune to viruses and spyware. For another, the hard drive doesn’t act as a cache.’

Eddie gave Kit a puzzled look. ‘He means it doesn’t keep a copy of your open files in virtual memory,’ the younger man explained.

‘Quite so,’ said West, levering himself upright. In one hand he had a small transparent case, which he popped open to reveal a MicroSD memory card, a sliver of black plastic the size of a thumbnail. ‘You can be betrayed by your own computer, you know – its hard drive is full of invisible copies of your files that any half-competent technician can recover.’ He slotted the little card into the reader, then typed commands. Columns of green text scrolled up the screen. ‘This may be slow and outdated, but it can still run a spreadsheet.’

Eddie and Kit exchanged glances. West obviously kept the sole records of his illegal operations on the memory card. If they could take it from him, they might find the information they were after.

But the fat man wasn’t likely to give it up without a fight, even if he wouldn’t be the one to throw the punches. The goon who let them in had taken up a more alert stance, and the second man had left his desk and was lurking behind the two visitors. In the time it would take the cops outside to reach the office, the card could be hidden, even destroyed.